Zimbabwe: Aid Distribution

The Lord Bishop of Rochester: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they are able to use non-governmental organisations in the delivery of aid to the needy in Zimbabwe.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, non-governmental organisations are a vital channel for the UK and all other major donors in the delivery of humanitarian aid in Zimbabwe. The Department for International Development's funding to NGOs is provided either directly or as part of our contribution to UN agencies in Zimbabwe, notably the World Food Programme. Such organisations have been extremely effective at reaching the most vulnerable communities and delivering aid without bowing to political pressure.

The Lord Bishop of Rochester: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. Can she tell us the balance of international, British and Zimbabwean NGOs being funded? Will Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Commonwealth affect that balance? Does she see any role for faith communities and their NGOs in delivering aid to the needy in Zimbabwe?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate asked about the NGOs being funded. I can speak only about those that we fund. For example, we have funded CAFOD and Save the Children UK. I am aware that organisations such as the Zimbabwe Red Cross, HELP Germany and the Zimbabwe Women's Bureau also provide food for vulnerable schoolchildren and under-fives in some areas of Zimbabwe. John Snow International is also involved in work. There is a role for faith communities, and that will undoubtedly continue to be the case.
	The position relating to the provision of humanitarian aid remains the same, despite Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Commonwealth. What will cease is Zimbabwe's access to technical and other such co-operation from the Commonwealth.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, given the authorities' manipulation of aid distribution, has not the time come to go to the UN with a resolution asking for independent monitors? Despite the continual resistance of the noble Baroness the Lord President of the Council, there is growing support for such a move among NGOs distributing aid.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that a memorandum of understanding was recently signed by the World Food Programme and the Government of Zimbabwe. It was hard fought over, precisely because of the dispute about attempts by the Government of Zimbabwe to politicise food aid. As I have said before, I cannot answer for the food that is distributed through the Grain Marketing Board, which is managed by the Government of Zimbabwe. Last Friday, we had a meeting with 12 NGOs operating in Zimbabwe. There were no complaints about politicisation, although they all said that the operating environment could be difficult.
	The noble Lord asked about independent monitors. He will know that we have given additional money to the World Food Programme for its monitoring programme. We ourselves have local monitors, watching what is done with our money.

Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, we acknowledge the important role that NGOs can play and have played in the distribution of food aid to the needy in Zimbabwe, but is it not the case that, all too often, food cannot reach the needy because of ZANU-PF roadblocks? In that regard, is it not the case that the call of the needy in Zimbabwe will be truly met only when President Robert Mugabe hands over executive power to a government of national unity? What are Her Majesty's Government doing to ensure that the commitments and promises given earlier this year by President Thabo Mbeki to our Prime Minister, as well as to President Bush, that there would be a resolution of the crisis in Zimbabwe by mid-2004 are met?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord asked about how food aid reached the needy. What has happened this year in particular is that, increasingly, we have had to target food aid at areas that are usually food-secure, such as Manicaland and the Mashonaland provinces, not just Matabeleland, because they have some of the highest rates of malnutrition, due mainly to the impact of HIV/AIDS.
	With regard to the dialogue that is being overseen, if you like, by the Government of South Africa, my understanding is that they continue to push for talks behind the scenes. I have not seen any date for the resolution of those talks. We all know how difficult such situations can be.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, has the Minister seen the report that was issued at the end of last week by 10 South African Church leaders on interference with the distribution of aid, including interference with World Food Programme aid? Has she also seen the report by C-Safe, a consortium of three large international donors, that it is conducting a reverification programme to ensure that aid reaches the most needy?
	Does not the Minister think that it is difficult for NGOs and for organisations such as the World Food Programme to complain, given that they must all register under a scheme promulgated by the ZANU-PF regime in July 2003? If such bodies make too much noise, their registration can be withdrawn.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I have not read the report, but I saw the first page when it was shown to me by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. I am aware that in the report there are allegations about the World Food Programme distribution. However, I am not aware whether they are old or new allegations. In this House, we have discussed the fact that when the World Food Programme has become aware of any issues with respect to diversion, it has dealt with them promptly and immediately. I shall repeat what I have said in this House in the past: if any noble Lords have any information, we will investigate it.

English Grammar and Punctuation

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What steps they are taking to improve the usage of English grammar and punctuation.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the development of language is key to children's learning. The study of grammar and punctuation feature in the national curriculum from the foundation stage onwards. We have invested considerable resources in the National Primary Strategy and the Key Stage 3 Strategy in order to raise standards in schools and to improve teaching and learning in English.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that positive Answer. Her belief in the correct use of English language and punctuation is clearly shared by a large number of people. Lynn Truss's excellent little book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, is top of the best seller lists this Christmas with a print run that has been extended from 15,000 to 400,000 copies. The title is a joke about pandas, which I do not have time to explain.
	Does the Minister not agree that regrettably few people know how to use commas, apostrophes and figures of speech properly and that the Government and Parliament should set an example? For example, there is a notice not far from your Lordships' Chamber which gives "Fridays" a possessive apostrophe. Will she also impress on her colleagues how important it is that the comma is used correctly so that the sentence "A woman, without her man, is nothing" is corrected to "A woman: without her, man is nothing"?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, in anticipation of my noble friend's Question, I obtained Lynn Truss's book and read it over the weekend. I recommend it to any noble Lord who is interested in pursuing grammar. Perhaps I shall receive a free copy now! Of course, the panda went into a bar and "eats, shoots and leaves". As noble Lords will know, it depends on where the comma is placed; indeed, as it does in the phrase about women and their requirement for men, which is in the same vein.
	My noble friend raised a serious point. It is important that we ensure that children and adults—we have a huge basic literacy problem in this country—learn to speak, to read and to use English correctly. It is very important that people can converse and write in the tongue of this country, but it is also a useful tool in terms of learning other languages.

Lord Quirk: My Lords, as a grammarian by trade, I obviously declare an interest since anything that sells my books must be good. But would the Minister not agree that classroom emphasis ought principally to be on addressing the poverty of children's vocabulary; on helping them to enjoy and use the unparalleled riches of our lexicon; and on savouring the nuance of the mot juste, as we say in English?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the mot juste is a very important phase. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Quirk. I do not think that these ideas are in contradiction. We know that children who do not have access to a good, high quality teaching of vocabulary, and who do not have parental input that gives them the quality of vocabulary, tend to become poor readers and can end up in a downward spiral that leads to severe problems in the future. I could not agree more. It is part of the work being carried out in the Sure Start programme; that is, working with parents to help them to become the best educators that they can be for their young children.

Baroness Blatch: My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell the House what proportion of marks are awarded for GCSE English and History, respectively, for grammar, punctuation and spelling?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it will come as no surprise to the noble Baroness that off the top of my head I cannot give that information. I shall write to her and put a copy in the Library.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, given that most of us learnt our English grammar from Latin or from foreign languages, is the Minister not concerned at the demise of foreign languages teaching in secondary schools, particularly at key stage 4?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I rejoice in the fact that under the National Language Strategy—which I am pleased that I had a hand in—we are introducing languages more fully into the primary stage of children's learning. I have said often in your Lordships' House that it is wrong to rely on recalcitrant 14 to 16 year-olds as being the deliverers of our foreign language strategy. It is important that children, young people and adults have real opportunities to speak languages; that is, to converse, to enjoy the culture and to use languages for the betterment of their employment possibilities.

Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that many foreigners speak and use better English than we do in Britain?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I sense an Eliza Doolittle moment arising. There is no doubt that there are examples where people have very good spoken and written English. It is true for people who are educated here; it is true for people who are educated abroad. Our ambition should be that everyone should have the highest possible quality of written and spoken English.

Baroness Strange: My Lords, does the Minister agree that inverted commas can sometimes be misleading? For example, last week, I had a letter addressed to me with my name in inverted commas. But not only that, the second line, "House of Lords", was also in inverted commas.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, indeed, one could be misled by such inverted commas.

Lord Swinfen: My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether poor English is corrected in all subjects taught in schools or only in English lessons and English homework?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord has raised an interesting point. One aspect revealed by the National Literacy Strategy is that teachers have noticed how the use of English has improved dramatically across different subjects. It has long been my view, and I think the noble Lord will agree, that English should not be taught or corrected purely in English lessons, but that children's use of language is appropriate or corrected appropriately in all lessons.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, would my noble friend be more up-front about the use of the Queen's English in the Queen's Speech?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I make no comment whatsoever.

Lord McNally: My Lords, what will be the impact on grammar, punctuation and spelling of the generation that sends more text messages than uses speech?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, when I note the speed with which text messages are sent to me by my children, I think that they will develop incredible thumb dexterity. It is important to recognise that children are perfectly capable of developing skills in more than one language. Clearly, text messaging is going to become another language.

Lord Monson: My Lords, first, does the noble Baroness agree that it would be a good idea for Government Ministers to set an example by always using correct grammar and punctuation, which has not invariably been the case? Secondly, is she aware that when the Post Office in the Palace of Westminster forwards correspondence to noble Lords during the Recess, it does so using large, floppy, printed envelopes that are not only difficult to open, but which feature a glaring grammatical error?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, fortunately I am not responsible for the envelopes used in your Lordships' House, but I am sure that the noble Lord's comment will be picked up. People will scour those envelopes to see what is the grammatical error.
	I agree that we are all beholden to ensure that our English is grammatically correct. I hesitate to say that mine always is, but I do strive.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, is the Minister convinced that enough is being done about this problem within our teacher training courses? If teachers themselves cannot use proper grammar and punctuation, they have no hope of imparting them to their pupils.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it is an important aspect both within teacher training courses and as a part of continuing professional development. The latest Ofsted report highlighted the fact that more needs to be done in some areas with our schools and teachers. We shall continue with that work.

BBC Charter Review

Lord McNally: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How they intend to encourage the widest participation by the public in their consultation exercise relating to the review of the BBC charter.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my right honourable friend Tessa Jowell launched the first phase of charter review on 11th December with the publication of the public consultation document, The Review of the BBC's Charter—that is, BBC apostrophe "s". This is supported by a leaflet that will be widely distributed, along with a comprehensive programme of survey research, public meetings and a dedicated website. Charter review will be characterised by our openness, our efforts to engage as broad a section of the population as we can, and our commitment to listen to what people have to say.

Lord McNally: My Lords, did the Minister catch the late-night Sky News programme the other evening, during which a journalist from a well known media group and a Sky journalist discussed the weaknesses and shortcomings of the BBC stewardship without ever acknowledging that both of their employers have massive vested interests in a weakened and emasculated BBC? Will he guarantee that Ministers will give full support to the BBC being free to defend its record and to promote the high standards of public service broadcasting for which it is the iron pole?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, no, I did not hear that late-night programme, but I can certainly confirm that the BBC will be free to express its views and to defend its record as a part of the consultation process. Indeed, Gavyn Davies immediately welcomed the review document and the process upon which we are engaging.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, I also welcome the review document, but is my noble friend aware that there are those who are disappointed that greater acknowledgement has not been made of the valued public sector broadcasting role of the BBC? A single assumed weakness of the BBC prompts bigger headlines than serious distortions and untruths coming from the commercial media. Does my noble friend agree that the BBC is one of our great achievements and that we need not only to defend it, but to assert its achievements, which have helped to set standards for both the television and radio industries throughout the country?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I certainly agree that, in terms of media coverage, errors made by the BBC are given greater prominence than its virtues. To that extent, I agree with my noble friend. However, I have to say that the short consultation document, of which 600,000 have been printed so far, and in which I had some editorial say, started by asking, "What qualities do you most value in the BBC" followed by a question mark and no alternative. As a survey researcher, I had to say—although I cannot remember the exact words—"Is there anything you have to criticise about the quality of BBC programmes?". It is important that the consultation exercise should cover both aspects.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, as a supporter of the BBC, can we be absolutely sure that it will take notice of the consultation procedure and what it brings forward? Further, can we be sure that, among the things that need to be considered, will be the recruitment base, which seems to be very narrow? A second matter is how intolerant and arrogant interviewers often treat visitors to their programmes. They seem to be more concerned with protecting themselves and their own viewpoint rather than the view of the person being interviewed.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the last point is a matter for the governors of the BBC, although of course the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, is welcome to express his opinion in his response to the consultation. I hear what he says about the BBC's recruitment policies. Indeed, when he took office some four years ago, Greg Dyke described the BBC as "hideously white". I do not know whether that is what the noble Lord meant, but steps have been taken to ensure that recruitment by the BBC is more representative of the range of ethnic composition and gender of the people of this country.

Baroness Buscombe: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is welcome that the BBC now recruits beyond advertising in the Guardian? It has now decided to advertise in other newspapers, which is a step forward. Further, is not one of the great problems with the whole of this process the reality that there is a multiplicity of views on what public service broadcasting really means?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, yes, and that is one of the issues which I hope the review process will cover. People do mean different things by "public service broadcasting" and we are not attempting, within the review process, to thrust a particular view down the throats of the public; rather, we seek to listen to what people say.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I am sure the Minister is well aware that more and more broadcast material, including a great deal from the BBC, is now available on the Internet where no regulator has jurisdiction to secure the maintenance of standards of any kind. Will the Government consult the public—I hope that they will do so—on the need for Ofcom to be given some responsibility for material of this kind broadcast on the Internet, if only to draw up a code of practice?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I believe that we are straying beyond the subject matter of the Question. The ability of Ofcom to police the Internet is an issue that was debated at great length during our consideration of the Communications Bill. The general view taken both in this House and elsewhere is that policing the Internet is extraordinarily difficult to do.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, the Minister said that 600,000 copies of the brochure had been printed. While one is encouraged by that figure, by a rough-and-ready reckoning, there are probably close to 20 million households in the United Kingdom. Given that the BBC broadcasts to all of them, why should not some form of brochure be put through every letter-box?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, will recognise that the figure of 600,000 copies was a print order; it was not a limit to the number available. However, although we have considered the point, we have not taken the view that we should put a copy of the leaflet through every letter-box. There is a limit to the number of things which people will accept and respond to through their letter-boxes.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, is it right that broadcasters should be paid huge sums of money for not moonlighting?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, if I knew what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was talking about I would refer the matter to the governors of the BBC because it is not a government responsibility.

Lord Chan: My Lords, the BBC is to be congratulated on employing people from different backgrounds. Will the Minister ensure that ethnic minorities will be consulted in this exercise?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Yes, my Lords, that is our responsibility. Recruitment to the BBC is, of course, a matter for the governors, but we shall make sure that the consultation documents and opportunities to respond go to all ethnic groups in this country.

Afghanistan: Opium Poppy Production

Lord Astor of Hever: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they are concerned about the increased growing of heroin poppies in Afghanistan and what steps they are taking to prevent the import of heroin from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the report of the United Nations' 2003 Afghanistan opium survey shows an unwelcome but not unexpected increase of 8 per cent in opium poppy cultivation and 6 per cent in production. This mirrors the experience of counter-narcotics policies in other countries, such as Pakistan and Thailand. The United Kingdom has taken on lead nation status in supporting the implementation of the Afghanistan national drug control strategy, adopted in May 2003, and aims to eliminate poppy production within the next 10 years. We are committing £70 million over the next three years to fund a wide range of counter-narcotics activity.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Afghanistan supplies 75 per cent of the world's heroin and 90 per cent of that comes to this country. Does the noble Baroness agree that the Government are failing in their pledge to cut heroin production as this year's harvest is the second highest ever recorded?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, this country has a huge stake in ensuring the success of the Afghanistan national drug control strategy. Ninety-five per cent of the heroin on our streets in the United Kingdom originates from Afghanistan—a horrifying figure. The noble Lord said that we are failing in our strategy. This strategy has been running for seven months only of a 10-year programme. Sadly, experience in other countries—particularly in Pakistan and Thailand—tells us that inevitably the figures will rise as interdiction goes into different areas and drug production moves to the margins, to areas where the police find it more difficult to get to the drug producers. That is what is happening in Afghanistan. We are in this for the long term and I ask the noble Lord not to be too pessimistic at this stage.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, is the Minister worried about a link between the expansion in poppy production and recent reports that Afghan warlords are paying huge sums of money to buy votes to the Loya Jirgah, the body which will determine Afghanistan's new constitution?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the activities of the warlords in different respects are very worrying and it is important to look at the ways in which interdiction works. The point I made to the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, is also important in this respect. As drug production is chased out of the areas where we are firming up on security, so it moves into other areas. This makes it more difficult for us to police not only drug production but the activities of those who manipulate local communities. I know that the noble Baroness will join me in hoping that the Loya Jirgah is a great success—as I am sure do all noble Lords. It began yesterday and it has got off to a reasonably good start. We need to give it maximum backing but to be very aware of the kind of problems raised by the noble Baroness.

Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, are alternative crops proposed for those who are growing this drug? This has been done in South America where, for instance, flower production, together with no import duties on flowers grown in most South American countries, has been successful up to a point. Would this apply to Afghanistan?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the noble Baroness is right. This is not a question of stopping the poppy growing but of providing sustainable alternatives for the people on the ground. Over the next three years the Department for International Development will spend £170 million on exactly that kind of development project in Afghanistan. Of that amount, £20 million will be earmarked to provide a sustainable alternative livelihood. For example, such a project is being established in Badakhshan. We are funding it jointly with the United States of America and we are looking at a variety of different crops for farmers to grow as alternatives.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, can the Minister say through which countries the heroin passes before it reaches this country?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, the routes are various. Most are overland. I hope the noble Baroness will excuse me but it would be unwise to go into great detail about what we know of drug routes because it could compromise our ability to police those routes properly and to use effective interdiction when we get the chance. A good deal of our intelligence effort at the moment is expended on looking at the ways in which drugs travel overland from Afghanistan and eventually reach this country.

Lord Desai: My Lords, would it not be a better policy to buy up all poppy production and destroy it at source, rather than to follow this futile policy of discouraging production when it is in everyone's self-interest to make money by growing poppies?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, although that sounds very attractive, for how many years would we be forced to buy up production? It might sound like an attractive alternative in the first year, but if it continued year after year we would find that more and more people would think that poppy production was a jolly good line to go in for if it was underwritten by that kind of buy-up. So, attractive as it may sound in the first instance, in the longer term we might live to regret it.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, I wish to make a brief business statement. At a convenient time after 3.30 p.m.—after the three opening speeches—my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement on the European Council meeting.
	As regards the length of today's two debates, if contributions other than the opening and closing speeches and the normal exemptions were kept to around eight minutes, I calculate that we will finish by about 10.30 p.m. That is past the normal time but not disastrously so.

Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [HL]

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	The Bill represents the most radical overhaul of domestic violence legislation in 30 years. It reflects the fact that domestic violence is unacceptable, that victims must be protected and offenders punished. It enshrines in legislation for the first time the rights that all victims have to support, advice and information. It includes two new measures to close loopholes where offenders are currently escaping justice.
	The Bill is a tribute to those who have fought long and hard for change. This includes voluntary sector organisations such as the NSPCC, Women's Aid, Refuge and Victim Support. It also includes Members of this House. The measures in the Bill are the result of consultation, engagement and policy development with a range of stakeholders, including many victims personally, and the work of bodies such as the Law Commission.
	The issues that the Bill seeks to address are of grave importance. Domestic violence constitutes one-quarter of violent crime; it claims the lives of two women a week. It will affect one in four women and one in six men at some point in their lives. It has a profound impact on the children involved. More than a third of children living in a violent home are aware of what is happening, and more than half are when the violence is repeated. It also has a profound impact on society. Fifty per cent of women in contact with mental health services have had violent or abusive experiences. Domestic violence is a major cause of homelessness; it accounts for 16 per cent of homelessness acceptances every year.
	The measures in the Bill are central to the Government's overall strategy to tackle violent crime, to put victims and witnesses at the heart of the criminal justice system and to fulfil the manifesto commitment to legislate for a "victims' Bill of rights". They also support broader government aims and objectives, such as ensuring that every child has the chance to fulfil their potential. Children who witness domestic violence are more likely to suffer educational failure, ill health, substance misuse, abuse and neglect.
	Domestic violence cannot be tackled by legislation alone. A change in attitude and culture is necessary. Although there can surely be few who still believe it is a man's right to beat his wife, one in five young men and one in 10 young women think that violence towards a partner is acceptable in some situations. We must work to prevent domestic violence happening and work with victims and offenders to stop it recurring. We must provide increased legal protection for victims and bring offenders to justice.
	Finally, we must provide support to help victims rebuild their lives. To this end, the Government are investing £84 million in their three-stage strategy to tackle domestic violence, of which this Bill is a part. I am delighted to be able to say that today marks the launch of the new national freephone 24-hour helpline. This has been set up with £1 million funding from the Government and £1 million funding from Comic Relief. The helpline is being supported by an online database of all refuge accommodation and services available in the United Kingdom.
	The Criminal Justice Act 2003 represented a major step in the radical overhaul of the criminal justice system, with its overall aim of bringing more offenders to justice and restoring victims, witnesses and communities to their proper place at the core of the system, thereby balancing the competing claims for justice. The Bill builds on those changes; it also complements the huge amount of activity being undertaken by criminal justice agencies, other services and voluntary organisations.
	Victims want to see the perpetrator brought to justice. Unfortunately, there is a wide gap between the number of offences reported and the number of offences in respect of which someone can be brought to justice. Our focused action to narrow the justice gap includes: targeting persistent offenders who commit half of all crime; enforcing warrants for failure to attend court; improving the quality of evidence submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service by the police; and tackling offending on bail.
	We have seen the numbers of offenders brought to justice increase by 4.3 per cent between March 2002 and March 2003. In the new year, we will publish a consultation on proposals to improve the efficiency and focus of the criminal injuries compensation scheme and proposals to resource and provide a wider range of services to victims. Subject to the consultation, we intend to legislate.
	I have set out the context in which the measures in the Bill were developed. I now turn to the proposals in the Bill itself.
	On average, one incident of domestic violence is reported to the police every minute. It is critical, therefore, that they have powers to deal with domestic violence offenders and protect the victim. Clause 1 makes breach of a non-molestation order under the Family Law Act 1996 a criminal offence. This means that such a breach can now be punishable in the criminal courts with a maximum sentence of five years.
	It also means that the police can always arrest for a breach. At present, they can arrest without a warrant only if this is specified in the order. Courts will now have to consider whether to make a non-molestation order when they make an occupation order.
	Clause 7 makes common assault an arrestable offence. Common assault covers a wide range of violence or threatened violence—for example, striking, or attempting to strike, a person with a fist, stick or bottle, or drawing a knife on someone. Together, Clauses 1 and 7 will clarify and extend the current police powers and ensure that officers attending a domestic violence incident can be more confident in putting "positive policing" policies into action.
	We recognise that this is not just about a change in the law but, as I said earlier, about a change in culture and how the police approach domestic violence incidents. I pay tribute to the work ACPO has done in this field, led so ably by Jim Gamble.
	It is vital that the law protects all victims of domestic violence, and recognises the relationships that exist in society today. Clauses 2 and 3 extend the protection currently afforded by the Family Law Act. This would mean that same-sex cohabiting couples could apply for occupation orders by virtue of being recognised cohabitants. An occupation order gives the court the power to regulate the occupation of the home for a temporary period of time. For example, the court may use this type of order to exclude the perpetrator of violence from the home and allow the victim to remain in it. Those in intimate personal relationships of a significant duration who have never cohabited or married will also be able to apply for non-molestation and occupation orders.
	We recognise that defining relationships is a complex and sensitive area. I expect that your Lordships will want to probe this issue in Committee. I am very keen that we work together to ensure that the law is sensible, coherent and applicable to modern society.
	The Bill would make restraining orders under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 available to the criminal courts on conviction for any offence, but also, crucially, in cases where there has been an acquittal. This gives the magistrates or Crown Courts the ability to make an order, currently available only in the civil courts, if it is felt the victim is in need of protection. It does not undermine the presumption of innocence, since in deciding whether to make an order, the court will consider the same question as would a civil court—is an order necessary to protect from harassment? It avoids the situation in which, following an acquittal, the victim has to have a police escort from the Crown Court to the civil court to obtain adequate protection.
	Clause 6 provides for the establishment and conduct of domestic homicide reviews. We believe these are necessary, as a domestic attack which results in the death of the victim—and, sometimes, the children—is very rarely the first attack. The victim and their children may have already been in contact with a range of statutory agencies including the police, schools, social services and healthcare services. These reviews will not be an exercise in apportioning blame, or "naming and shaming"; rather, they will be an opportunity to learn lessons, to better identify risk and to prevent future deaths.
	Your Lordships are aware that the Government have asked the Law Commission to consider the law on the partial defences to murder, in particular the partial defence of provocation. The Law Commission is currently consulting on this area and will report to the Government. We await their recommendations before taking any decision on changing the law.
	Clauses 4 and 5 create a new offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult, and have some linked procedural measures to enable an increased number of murder or manslaughter charges to be safely left to the jury in these circumstances. This is to end the unacceptable situation in which those jointly accused of murder evade justice by remaining silent or blaming each other.
	I expect your Lordships to scrutinise these clauses closely in Committee. It is a difficult area of law. The Law Commission made some detailed recommendations and, although we have not followed them completely, we believe that we have found a solution which will ensure that people will not escape justice, that all the evidence in these cases is made available to the court, but—and it is a very important "but"—that the proper safeguards are in place so that those who are entirely innocent are not blamed for the crimes of others.
	Clauses 9 to 12 make provision for a two-stage trial procedure, following a Law Commission recommendation, whereby part of a trial on indictment in the Crown Court could be heard by a judge sitting without a jury. This is directed at certain cases where the offending conduct of the defendant is repeated so many times that the number of offences is too great to be accommodated in a single jury trial. Such offending used to be dealt with by preferring an indictment charging offences that were regarded as specimens of a wider range of offending. If there was a conviction on the specimen counts, the court would then sentence the offender for the whole. However, a Court of Appeal decision in 1998—Kidd and Others—disapproved that practice on the grounds that it involved sentencing an offender for offences in respect of which he had not pleaded or been found guilty, nor had agreed to have taken into consideration.
	Therefore, when it is not practicable for the courts to try an indictment containing hundreds of separate counts, it is no longer possible to sentence the defendant for the totality of his offending. That is a particular problem in cases involving innumerable similar thefts or frauds committed against a long series of victims, in which the defendant can be tried only for a small number of offences in order to make the trial manageable for the jury.
	Cases involving child Internet pornography are another, topical example. People charged with such offences may have downloaded thousands of sexually explicit images of children on to their computers, but at present they can be tried and sentenced on the basis of only a handful of those images. To deal with that, the Government have decided to act on recommendations from the Law Commission in their report, The Effective Prosecution of Multiple Offending.
	The Bill contains provisions allowing for a two-stage trial procedure. When the court considers that some counts in the indictment can be regarded as samples of other counts, the former would be able to be tried with a jury, and if the defendant was convicted of those, he could then be tried for the remainder by the judge sitting without a jury. The measures will enable the court to try the defendant on counts which properly represent the totality of his offending, and, upon conviction, to sentence him on that basis. They will increase the confidence of victims and the public at large in the criminal justice system by ensuring that people who have committed multiple crimes will be punished appropriately.
	Part 3 of the Bill sets out a range of new measures to give victims the rights to consistent and guaranteed levels of advice, support and information from the criminal justice agencies that they come into contact with, and to give them a powerful voice across government. The Bill would give the Secretary of State the powers to issue a code of practice as to what services should be provided by organisations in the criminal justice system and organisations that deal with victims of crime. A preliminary and illustrative draft of this code is in the House Library for scrutiny and comment. It lists some 70 services that victims are entitled to receive as their case progresses through the system. There will, of course, be a formal consultation process before the code is finalised and laid before both Houses.
	If a victim feels that the code has been breached, he or she can take their complaint to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, whose job it will be to enforce the code. The ombudsman will have full powers to investigate and report to Parliament on breaches of the code.
	The code concentrates on a victim's interaction with the criminal justice system. However, as we pointed out in our national strategy for victims and witnesses published last July, their needs can often extend beyond the responsibilities of the criminal justice agencies. A new independent commissioner for victims and witnesses will be a powerful voice to champion the needs of victims and witnesses across government. He or she will have powers to look at and make recommendations about, for example, the health, housing or social security difficulties that often confront those who are victimised. Taken together with the code, it provides the first focused and holistic response to the all-round needs of victims.
	I feel proud and privileged to bring the Bill to this House. It is a Bill of which we can all rightly feel proud. I know that your Lordships will want to scrutinise drafting and seek explanations from the Government as to why we have pursued certain courses of action. However, I hope that we are all agreed that what the Bill seeks to achieve—to tackle domestic violence, bring more offenders to justice, and provide better support for victims and witnesses—represents a truly shared agenda. It will be a privilege and pleasure to work with the whole House on this much needed Bill. I hope that together we will ensure that we have a law that is effective and workable and can genuinely address those issues and better protect the people of this country whom we seek to serve. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Baroness Scotland of Asthal.)

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, we broadly support the objectives of all the provisions in this Bill. I welcome the fact that the Minister made clear the importance of the House scrutinising properly the Government's measures in Committee. It is always right for us to ask the Government to justify the route that they have chosen to take, especially on occasions when they have diverted from the route adopted by the Law Commission. However, that does not mean that we shall thereby be adopting a hostile approach to the Government's proposals. We shall try to expose any unintended consequences and to make the legislation as robust as possible, so that it may not be challenged in future.
	In some part, the Bill bears the hallmarks of a rushed job. No blame for that can be attached to those who drafted it, as they simply have to follow the directions of Ministers. However, there does seem to have been confusion between government departments about what should and should not be in the Bill. That confusion reigned until the very day of the publication of the Bill. The Minister told us in a very helpful briefing meeting last week that there was no disagreement between Ministers about whether there should be provisions to remove the defence of provocation. Her assurance is enough for me; I am not worried whether there was a disagreement between two government Ministers—which did not involve the noble Baroness. What is clear is that, in the Home Office press release at 8.44 a.m. on Tuesday last week, the Government said that the Bill did include measures on the,
	"reform to defences to homicide—including provocation".
	But, hey presto, three hours later, at 11.44 a.m. on the same day, the Home Office press release has suddenly expunged any reference to that measure.
	Well, so be it. Whatever lies behind the change, I believe that it was the right thing to do. It is right to refer such an important and far-reaching matter to the Law Commission to enable it to give a considered view. I hope that it will not be asked to give a snap response, as was suggested in the press, but that it will be given a reasonable time to consider the matter. If the original proposals had been in the Bill, it would have been far more controversial than, I hope, it shall prove to be. It is unlikely that it would have proved suitable for Grand Committee. As it is, when the Minister moves her Motion at the end of the debate to send the Bill to Grand Committee, she will have my full support.
	I shall comment briefly on some major issues, but leave any detailed comments for Grand Committee. We have always made it clear that we welcome new legislation on domestic violence, and the first part of the Bill covers that. It is an appalling crime that often remains hidden behind closed doors. My response to the issues raised during our deliberations on the Bill will be governed by three factors. First, tackling domestic violence is not only or even primarily an issue for legislation. I very much welcomed the Government's recognition of that in the Minister's opening remarks. She echoed the briefing that we received from Liberty, which states:
	"One of the central problems in tackling domestic violence is that existing powers are under-utilised".
	We must try to ensure that education proceeds to ensure that laws are properly used. I associate myself with the Minister's proper words in recognising the work done by ACPO on training in this sphere. More training will be needed as these new measures come into force. Training is required across other agencies as well, as was pointed out earlier today in the latest briefing to noble Lords by Women's Aid.
	The second factor that will be always at the back of my mind is that family life—indeed, the very definition of "family"—has evolved over the past three decades since the last major consideration of law on domestic violence. We need to take account of that. Partnerships, both of same sex and different sex, need to be brought within any legislation that we consider on domestic violence. I am therefore pleased to see the provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 that appear to recognise that fact, although I will of course need to look very carefully at the definition in Clause 3 to see whether there is sufficient clarity about the length and depth of the relationship that is brought within this provision. I think that, at the moment, there could be real problems with the definition of a relationship that is an,
	"intimate personal relationship . . . of significant duration".
	The third factor that I will need to keep in mind is that in our joint endeavour to address the difficulties of securing the conviction of those who are guilty of domestic violence and child death that may follow from that, we must ensure that the measures in the Bill are robust enough to stand up to legal challenge and particularly that they are compatible with the ECHR.
	The Minister painted a very disturbing picture about domestic violence and she was right to do so. For some, becoming a victim of domestic violence, or indeed of any crime, may be a minor inconvenience, but for many—for most—it is a devastating experience, taking weeks, months, years, perhaps a lifetime, to begin to pick up the pieces. She is right that being a victim of crime is not an isolated event but an ongoing experience for a large proportion of victims. Surveys have shown that 4 per cent of victims suffer 41 per cent of the crimes. Experience shows that a person's ability to recover from an offence can be considerably improved when others recognise the significance of the event. Sadly, however, as we know, that is not the experience of most victims. We therefore welcome the Government's commitment to raise the standards of service that victims of crime should receive from all criminal justice agencies.
	Later today, my noble friend Lord Bridgeman will far more closely address the issues in Part 3 of the Bill. I shall leave that part to him. I shall concentrate on just some of the issues in Parts 1 and 2.
	The Minister has outlined what could be some of the most difficult parts of the Bill; that is, the issue of the death of a child in family circumstances—the familial homicide, as it is called in shorthand, and which is covered predominantly in Clauses 4 and 5. Those clauses seek to resolve the impasse that occurs when a child is killed, more than one person is present at the death, but it is impossible to prove which is the guilty party. The Law Commission consultative report made it clear that there is nearly universal recognition among members of the judiciary, practitioners and academics that this is a problem that needs to be resolved, although, as ever, there are variations in the way that they would go about resolving it.
	Research undertaken on this matter by the NSPCC makes deeply disturbing reading. During the three-year period covered by the survey,
	"no less than three children under 10 years old a week were killed or suffered serious injury".
	Of those children, just over half were under six months old, and 83 per cent were under two years old. Some 61 per cent of investigations that reached a conclusion resulted in no prosecutions, due either to a police or Crown Prosecution Service decision. Of the 27 per cent of cases that resulted in conviction for a criminal offence, only a small proportion led to conviction for either homicide or wounding/causing grievous bodily harm. In addition, as we know, the statistics on the reporting of injury to children show that there is significant under-reporting in this sphere. We know that the scale of the problem is devastating.
	We agree with the Government that it is unacceptable that a child's killer should go unpunished. However, we will need to probe very carefully whether the Government's route is necessarily the best way. Nevertheless, I make it clear that I am setting out on this journey today with the hope that they have found the best route.
	There are areas of particular concern that we shall need to examine. The first is whether the drafting of Clause 4(4) is satisfactory. Does it make it clear enough that the Government are imposing a duty of care upon those categories of people, with all the dire consequences that could fall upon them if a child does die? Is the definition of those who should be under a duty of care appropriate, taking special note of how and why the Government have diverged from the Law Commission approach? In casting their net to catch the guilty, have the Government made the net size too small?
	As the Minister has already recognised today, we will need to pay very careful attention to the drafting of the Government's provisions in Clause 5 regarding the inferences to be drawn from the defendant's failure to give evidence or refusal to answer a question. I note that the Law Commission's consultative report, number 279, reported that the Criminal Bar Association had reviewed the authorities and submitted that a conviction which was "decisively influenced" by the defendant's silence would be bound to be a violation of Article 6. Therefore, in Committee, we will need to ask the Government to justify their assertion that the Bill is compatible with the ECHR. I constructively look forward to that; I hope that they will be able to justify that.
	The first two clauses of Part 2, on criminal procedure, may well prove to be controversial in both Houses, but I support the Government's objectives. There has been much press coverage of the Government's plans to empower a court to issue a restraining order against a person who has been acquitted. The Government have said that orders may be made against either party and that the test is on a balance of probabilities. In looking at the Bill, I do not think that either of those matters is currently made clear in the drafting. I think that we will need to remedy that.
	I turn to the matter of multiple offending, dealt with in Clauses 9 to 12. Some press reports have claimed that this part of the Bill is an assault on jury trial. Our objective is that they should certainly not be an assault on jury trial but that they should provide a sensible way forward in retaining jury trial in cases where there is such a large number of counts that there are too many to be accommodated in a single trial.
	We agree with the Government that we need to find a way of overcoming the problem caused by the decision in the case of Kidd that precluded the practice of sentencing on the basis of specimen counts, where those counts are the only ones proved and/or admitted by a defendant. I and my honourable friends in another place have already made it clear during our debates on the Criminal Justice Act that we would look with favour on any sensible resolution of the Kidd problem. It remains to be seen whether the solution in the Bill is the right one; it may well be. However, I look forward to debating in Grand Committee the Government's approach and others which I believe that one or two of my noble friends may very constructively bring forward.
	This Bill—unlike so many of the Bills emanating from the Home Office—may be short in number of clauses, but I join the Minister in recognising that it is long in the importance of its potential good effect on society and the criminal justice system. I look forward to a lively and constructive debate in Grand Committee.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, like many others, I very much welcome the Government's initiative to improve the legislative framework for dealing with domestic violence. Violence inflicted within the home by adults upon each other, and largely by men upon women, has been in some ways a hidden crime. Indeed, the government consultation paper on the subject clearly illustrates the inadequacy of the statistics as a measure of the incidence of domestic violence. The police have been reluctant to intervene between couples and family members. Nor has intervention always been welcomed, even by the victims. So it sometimes seems as though violence within the home is regarded by society as different in kind from violence in the street, at the football ground or in the pub. We reject that approach and welcome the Bill. Violence and harassment within the home are an assault against the safety and human rights of the victim and the state has a role in dealing with violence against its citizens wherever it takes place.
	But while we are generally supportive of the Bill and believe that it will generally find favour in your Lordships' House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, it may be necessary—I am sure that it will be necessary—to test the intentions of the Government or to improve the Bill through the processes available to us.
	I shall deal only with the early part of the Bill, but before I do so it is worth noting that the Bill does not contain any definition of domestic violence. Several respondents have pointed out that different parts of central government use different definitions which could lead to difficulties when they are asked to collaborate in dealing with the problem. For example, what about the protection of older people? What about the protection of women from minority communities faced with forced marriages or genital mutilation? What is the existing law on those matters? Can the Minister reassure us that fears that this absence of a definition will cause problems are unfounded? As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, just said, there is no mention of including a partial defence of provocation, which caused a feeding frenzy among the press—I must say I thought that was slightly unjustified—from which the Government have been released by the more serious news of the past couple of days. None the less, it is important to know when the Law Commission, which the Government have tasked with advising them on this important topic, will complete its work.
	Some people have serious concerns that the Bill does not contain any provision about contact arrangements, bail conditions or the powers of the courts in matters concerning the welfare of children. Of course, I know that there is a whole body of other law on that matter, but given the close proximity of children to domestic violence in their own homes and the damage it can do to them, even where they themselves are not physically harmed—the Minister referred to that—the lack of a provision about contact arrangements and so on could be an important omission unless there is already sufficient provision in existing law to protect children.
	I turn to some of the clauses. There are clearly different views among lobbyists about Clause 1 and the establishment of breach of a non-molestation order as a criminal offence. Women's Aid Federation of England and the main children's charities are very supportive. The NSPCC in particular welcomed the introduction of a criminal offence for breach of non-molestation orders. However, in the context of the police being involved more closely in domestic violence or marital dispute situations, those organisations say that it is important that the police should themselves adopt new protocols. Perhaps specific training is needed to enable the police to specialise in domestic violence so that they can respond sensitively when called in to deal with such cases and gain awareness of the need to monitor the safety of victims and that of any children. I am sure that the wide range of initiatives in the original consultation paper will cover those points but I hope that the noble Baroness will reassure us on that matter.
	Interestingly enough, the Women's Aid Federation reports a complainant's comment that without proper enforcement an injunction is no more use than waving a till receipt from Asda. That is an amusing comment but it shows that not all women are reluctant to become involved in the legal system and that some of them at least recognise the advantages that it can bring them.
	Speaking personally, it seems to me that Clause 1 follows from the developing definition of the state's duty in relation to safeguarding people from violence wherever it occurs, which is the main thrust of the Bill. The new offence in Clauses 4 and 5 of causing or allowing the death of a child is controversial. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, went into that in some detail. In view of the fact that we are extremely restricted by time, I shall try not to say very much about that, except that it seems that the research which the NSPCC carried out indicates that whereas there is a high rate of conviction where deaths are caused by strangers, there is a very low rate of conviction where they are caused by family members. That is clearly a matter that the Bill must address. I am sure that we shall discuss the matter but we have to be willing to take account of the Government's view if they can defend it in every detail, which, knowing the Minister, I am certain that she is always prepared to do.
	Clause 17 on the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses is extremely welcome but I am quite surprised that not everyone feels the same way about it. Concerns have been expressed by what one might call the "children's lobby" that the interrelationship between the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses and the Children's Commissioner may not be very smooth. I hope that the noble Baroness will assure us that those two people will work together because, if that is not the case, much of the work in terms of collaborative action by local government, central government and various agencies such as the health service, which the Government hope will occur, will be made even more difficult than such collaborative actions already are.
	Noble Lords on these Benches welcome the Bill. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, we look forward to interesting discussions, if I may put it like that, and serious discussions. I am certain that they will be carried out in a spirit of collaboration and co-operation. I very much look forward to the process.

European Council, Brussels

Baroness Amos: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, before I make a Statement on the details of the IGC, I should say that the European Council also discussed Iraq. The presidency conclusions reaffirm the importance of the reconstruction of Iraq and condemn the recent terrorist attacks. These conclusions have been placed in the Library of the House.
	"This gives me the opportunity to update the House briefly on the events of the past 24 hours. The celebrations on the streets of Baghdad, Basra and all over Iraq show once and for all how delighted the Iraqi people are that Saddam's rule is now history. The Iraqi people want their freedom and support the principles of justice, democracy and the rule of law, just as people do everywhere given half the chance.
	"I should like to pay tribute to the American coalition forces and the intelligence services who brought about Saddam's capture. They have proved their professionalism, bravery and commitment. But let us also pay tribute to the Iraqi people who also helped capture Saddam. Thousands of Iraqis are now working in the new Iraq police and defence forces, and they are working to build a new Iraq, and we shall work with them to do so. There is still a massive amount to do, but we have achieved a lot in a short time: a political timetable taking us through to a democratic, elected government; and an Iraq where the public enjoy freedom of speech and religion, for the first time in decades.
	"More than 17,000 reconstruction projects have been launched. Oil production has risen by 320,000 barrels per day, with the proceeds used for the benefit of the Iraqi people rather than stolen or squandered as they were under Saddam's rule. Iraqis now have a new currency to spend in the increasingly well stocked markets. Electricity has surpassed pre-conflict levels and clean water supplies are improving daily.
	"But, as we have seen yet again today, the terrorists and Saddam's sympathisers will continue and, though small in number and in support, their terrorist tactics will still require vigilance, dedication and determination. But the hope of a new Iraq is now clear and evident to all. The final victory will be theirs—the Iraqi people's.
	"I now turn to the details of the European Council and intergovernmental conference which took place in Brussels on 12th and 13th December. The negotiations which have been going on over the last 22 months have been about the effective management of the European Union after its enlargement to 25 countries next year. That enlargement is a hugely important event, not just for the countries concerned, but for the whole of Europe. The stability and prosperity of our continent stand to gain enormously from enlargement. That is why we negotiated the Nice Treaty three years ago to make enlargement possible. It is why we have been negotiating in the convention, and now the intergovernmental conference, on a draft constitutional treaty.
	"A negotiation among 25 sovereign countries was bound to be complicated, particularly on the issue on which the Nice negotiation almost foundered; namely, the relative weight in voting terms which each country will have after enlargement. In the end it was on that issue that agreement proved impossible.
	"But a great deal of progress has been made, and I pay an unqualified tribute to the Italian presidency, whose skill and tenacity made that progress possible. Prime Minister Berlusconi was able to sum up at the end of the meeting that, while of course, in formal terms, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, there were some 82 points where consensus was close. Those included key changes on very important issues for the United Kingdom. If that proceeds on the basis outlined by Prime Minister Berlusconi, tax, EU finance, social security and criminal law will all remain the province of the nation state—subject to decision-making by unanimity, with any further treaty change subject to approval of national parliaments.
	"I should also highlight the fact that the European Council welcomed the proposals put forward by France and Germany and the United Kingdom on the future of European defence, which is limited of course to peacekeeping and humanitarian issues. Those will strengthen the European Union's collective planning capacity while in no way duplicating or conflicting with NATO, which remains the basis of Europe's territorial defence.
	"The draft constitutional treaty is also close to an agreement in other ways which are important for this country. It contains a clear statement that the Union has only the powers which the nations give it. The Union acts only when objectives cannot be achieved by individual countries acting alone. There will be new powers for national parliaments to be involved in EU legislation. It will be for the Union's national leaders, in the European Council, to set the strategy of the European Union, and there will be a full-time chair of the European Council to drive forward that work. The European Commission will have all its necessary independent authority within that system.
	"As I said earlier, the outstanding point of difference was over the relative weight of the votes that member states have within the EU. The Government made it clear in our White Paper, published in September, that we were content with the Nice system but were equally prepared to move to a new one, if there were a consensus for that. But this has been a particularly difficult question for Spain and Poland, and I believe it was right to take time to find a workable solution rather than to plough on in the hope of an unsatisfactory compromise. That is particularly so since the voting provisions of the Nice Treaty only take effect in a year's time and—something often not fully understood—under the convention proposal those Nice voting arrangements would anyway last until 2009. So we have time to resolve the issue.
	"Above all, the negotiation was living proof that the European Union is and will remain an organisation of sovereign member states. We could not agree because agreement required unanimity. In time, an agreement will be necessary to allow enlargement to work effectively. But we now have a chance to reflect and consider before proceeding.
	"In the mean time, the business of the European Union will continue under the existing treaty framework. We are in contact with the incoming Irish presidency to take forward the Lisbon economic reform agenda at the spring summit next March. Eight central European countries, and Malta and Cyprus, will accede to the European Union on 1st May.
	"We shall turn our minds to the next financing framework for the European Union, to cover the period from 2007. I have today, with the President of France, the Chancellors of Germany and Austria, and the Prime Ministers of the Netherlands and Sweden, written to the President of the Commission to emphasise the need for budgetary discipline over the coming financing period.
	"Ultimately, the negotiations are about the stability, security and prosperity of a Europe of nearly 500 million people, countries that are our principal allies and our major trading partners. It would be a serious mistake for any British government to absent themselves from those negotiations and to allow decisions vital to our security and prosperity to be made by others. We must continue to shape the future of Europe in ways that reflect our national interest. We can be either on the touchline shouting our criticism, or on the field as an active and successful player. I believe passionately that we must remain fully engaged. We will continue to work for the successful outcome of the negotiations".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating that Statement. I also express some regret and surprise that there were not separate Statements on Europe and, of course, the very important developments in Iraq over the past 24 hours. The Prime Minister boasted of that yesterday, and it was good news for the people of the entire world. I hope that it is not the view of No. 10 that a televised address precludes a full Statement to this House.
	Perhaps the noble Baroness might consider writing to the ambassador of the United States, to congratulate President Bush on the resolute leadership that led to that success and to salute that country's military and intelligence services on their achievement. How soon does she hope that Mr Hussein's capture and co-operative stance will lead to the unmasking of weapons of mass destruction?
	I shall turn to the EU conference. Does the noble Baroness share my relief that the prospect of a damaging new EU constitution has receded? Indeed, will she confirm to the House the reported sense of relief inside the Government at the result? Is it not the case that a new constitution was never really necessary for enlargement of the Union, and that its heavy and elitist emphasis on more centralisation of powers and more integration was set to take Europe in entirely the wrong direction? Does she agree with her honourable friend Gisela Stuart that it was all based on a model that was already 50 years out of date?
	In the light of last week's events, is it the view of the UK Government that a new EU constitution is required—yes or no? Will we be pressing for a renewed round of negotiations? If not, why were we so keen to have the constitution in the first place?
	There has been criticism of Mr Berlusconi's chairing of the summit, yet the Prime Minister described it as "heroic". Do the Government therefore reject the criticisms of Mr Berlusconi? Has the noble Baroness seen the comment by Mr Bertie Ahern that:
	"This is a huge project, a fundamental change for the whole of Europe"?
	Has she also seen the statement by the President of the Czech Republic that:
	"The attempt to impose a European constitution was a radical step on the way to creating a European superstate. Anyone who did not know that, knew nothing"?
	Did the UK Government know that, or did they know nothing? When the Government said that it was a tidying-up exercise, were they deceiving themselves or deceiving the British public?
	Now that it is clear that the questions involved were so far-reaching as to cause a major crisis in the EU, will the Government stop prevaricating and give an unequivocal assurance that a future EU constitution will not be ratified without a referendum of the British people?
	I understand that the British Government have been criticised by the French Government for not backing Germany and France. Why is that? Is it because the Prime Minister now accepts the prudent advice of Mr Brown that the Franco-German model is bad for competitiveness? Were Spain and Poland right? What is the Government's view on that? Is it our official policy now to stick with the Nice voting settlement? And what is our reaction to the threats from Chancellor Schroider to punish Poland financially? Is it not hypocrisy for France and Germany, which wrecked the EU stability pact in their own interests, overriding the worries of smaller countries, to attack others when they defend their national interests? What is our assessment of the risk of a so-called "two-speed" Europe? Do we share the views of Mr Berlusconi that it is inappropriate to form groups of countries? If so, in view of the wider uncertainties, will the UK Government now abandon their reckless dalliance with EU defence institutions that could undermine NATO?
	The EU constitution negotiations have fallen at the first fence. Is the Leader of the House aware that this was probably the least difficult fence to surmount? Does not the uncertainty in Europe underline the folly of the Government's ill thought-out proposals to destabilise our own domestic constitutional arrangements? When we see the shambles of last weekend we should be grateful for stability and for institutions that work well. We should not put them at risk. The weekend's breakdown confirms what many of us argued from the start; that the convention was a flawed undertaking which should never have been allowed to go forward and was bound to create more disunity than unity.
	It is time for genuine good Europeans to pick up the pieces and take the EU in different directions, building a better and more flexible kind of Europe which meets the true needs of all member states, large and small, and in which Britain should take a confident lead. What we saw last weekend was a defeat for the whole new Labour strategy for Europe, which has involved tagging along with France and Germany, weakening NATO, ignoring the smaller states, yearning pointlessly for euro currency membership, signing up to layers of outdated social regulations which would paralyse growth and weakening still further the EU's democratic accountability.
	There is now a new opening for Europe. Europe should have the wisdom to pause and build on what it has—not put all at risk by ill thought-out schemes to drive too far too fast.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I, too, thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made in another place. First, on what is after all an important but complicated Statement, I want to ask about the arrest of Saddam Hussein. All of us, of course, greatly welcome this development and congratulate all those involved, including the United States troops and those from Iraq who were helpful as police and military, on bringing about that result. Does the Minister agree that the final conclusion must be a trial of Saddam Hussein that is accepted by the people of Iraq as a legitimate and proper procedure which culminates in a proper and carefully thought-through trial and sentence? In that context, does she agree that it would be sensible to look at the possibility of an internationalised trial procedure, in which a trial might take place in Iraq, but with judges brought in from other countries under UN auspices in order to give such a trial international weight and legitimacy? Is not that the conclusion for which all of us must wish, because any other kind of trial would be likely to be questioned by the international community and as such may be counter-productive?
	Regarding the Statement on the constitutional settlement and the IGC, first, does the Leader of the House agree that it is in absolutely no one's interest that there should now be a breakdown? We are embarked upon a major historical effort—the attempt to integrate the whole of Europe. That is an aim and aspiration which would bring stability to countries that have been troubled by war and economic difficulties over many years. Therefore, it is in the interests of us all to find a settlement that will last.
	Does the Minister also agree that there has been a real step forward on defence? We on these Benches would not for one moment agree with the Leader of the Official Opposition, because in our view it would be useful and, indeed, complementary to NATO that Europe should undertake tasks NATO would not wish to undertake itself, and in which the United States would not wish to be involved. Why is it that of the group of Petersberg tasks accepted by the EU, that of peacemaking—as distinct from peacekeeping and humanitarian efforts—has not been included in the Statement?
	What is the Government's stance on the possibility of a breakdown? Do they accept the position of France and Germany with regard to weighted voting under the new two-requirement condition—that is, a majority of states and a majority of people—or do they believe that the Nice agreement, with all its difficulties and complexities, would be a better way to go?
	Finally, do the Government believe that we should press for negotiations to start as soon as may be feasible under the Irish presidency to try to achieve a new settlement before the European elections? Is that not an outcome devotedly and devoutly to be wished? Does the Minister not agree that almost any other outcome will leave Europe without the unity, determination and purpose that it needs at this historic time of trying to integrate the whole of Europe, west and east?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, for their comments and I shall attempt to address the issues raised. First, in relation to Iraq, having listened carefully to the statement made yesterday by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, I was surprised to hear the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, claim that my right honourable friend boasted. He clearly did not. His statement was most measured and clear, and, importantly, he spoke of the implications of the event for the people of Iraq. Furthermore, we remain confident that Saddam Hussein maintained a covert WMD programme before the recent conflict and that more evidence of those programmes will be uncovered.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, welcomed the developments in Iraq—I believe that they will be widely welcomed—and asked specific questions on the next steps, in particular the trial. We have consistently taken the view that it is for the people of Iraq to decide how to bring to justice those responsible for crime, with appropriate international help. The noble Baroness will be aware that on 10th December the Governing Council established a special tribunal. Iraqi judges and prosecutors who will be involved in the special tribunal are receiving training in international human rights standards and international law. They have received assistance from a number of countries, including ours, in that regard.
	I now turn to the specific issues raised on the EU, in particular on the breakdown of the talks. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, asked whether the Government shared a sense of relief. Absolutely not. We remain of the view that it is sensible to modernise and consolidate Europe's rule books so that we, as the EU, can operate effectively and work better as a Union of 25 than a Union of 15. The constitution would be a means of creating an effective enlarged reforming Europe. That modernisation would offer clear gains for us in the UK: a president of the European Council and new rights for national parliaments. The noble Lord asked whether we share the criticisms of Prime Minister Berlusconi. We do not, and the Statement was absolutely clear on that point. I believe that the question of Germany and the threat to punish Poland would be more appropriately addressed to the Germans.
	The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, also raised the issue of a two-speed Europe. It is essential that the Union continues to evolve in an inclusive way on the basis of equal rights and responsibilities before the law. Provisions for groups of member states to go further on certain policies have been embodied in treaties since Amsterdam. We have also been able to negotiate opt-outs where that has suited our national interests; for example, with regard to the Frontiers Protocol. However, inclusivity remains at the core of what we are about.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, also raised the matter of defence. I was pleased that she welcomed the settlement in respect of the French and that she saw it as a step forward. Three texts were agreed with France and Germany and endorsed unanimously by the European Council. They concerned mutual defence, structured co-operation based on capabilities, and planning EU-led missions. NATO remains the cornerstone of defence and, in circumstances where NATO is not engaged, it makes complete sense for Europe to have capability and power to act in the interests of Europe and the wider world.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, asked me specifically about peace-making and the Petersberg tasks. That matter appears in the revised Petersberg tasks, laid out in Article III.210.1. I hope that that reassures the noble Baroness.
	The next steps will be reviewed at the March Council under the Irish presidency. Members of the Council have already said that they will talk to member states to see where we can go in terms of next steps. I believe that I have addressed all the points raised.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, first, does my noble friend agree that it was always unrealistic to seek the conclusion of an intergovernmental conference during the Italian presidency less than three months after it had started? In reviewing what happened at the IGC, is not the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, exercising the greatest fantasy in talking about the British tagging along behind France and Germany and ignoring new applicants? Was not the whole history of foreign policy development in the European Union, particularly over the Iraq crisis, a demonstration of exactly the reverse of the scene put to us by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde?
	I want to ask my noble friend three specific questions arising from the presidency conclusions, which, as usual, were published before the discussions started; nevertheless, they are there. Paragraph 3 refers to the European actions in respect of the growth programme and states that the stability and growth pact will be consistent with that process. Does that mean before the French and Germans massacred the stability and growth pact or the stability and growth pact as it now is, having been shot to pieces?
	Later in the presidency conclusions on the subject of Iraq, on which I very much value my noble friend's Statement, it is expressed clearly that the European Council underlines the need for full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1511. Does that include all the demands—six specifically—made of all member states of the European Union? If so, that will bring about a major improvement in the peacekeeping role in Iraq.
	Finally, in relation to European security and defence policy, would my noble friend agree with me if I suggested that, rather than have 15 or 15 plus 10 member states making great declarations about the improvements that can be made, it would be helpful if some of them spent some time concentrating on their capacity to do anything? Even with the force that is mentioned for Bosnia and Herzegovina, it would be impossible for that mission to be launched without United States assistance in both physical and other assets.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend for his initial remarks reminding me that I did not address the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, on Britain's role in Europe. We have been absolutely clear about wanting to be at the heart of Europe and have been entirely confident of our strategy and policy. Therefore, when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, made his remarks, I wondered whether he was living in a parallel universe because his comments in no way reflected my reading of the role that we have played in the negotiations.
	I turn to my noble friend's specific questions. With regard to Iraq, my understanding is that we are looking for full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1511. I entirely agree with my noble friend that full implementation would mean a step change in what is taking place in Iraq at present.
	On the issue of European security and defence policy, again, my noble friend is right. We need to consider the issue of capacity but we must also be clear about what is appropriate in relation to certain incidents. A number of different models have been used: NATO; Berlin Plus; the UK operating on its own, as it did in Sierra Leone; and a French-led European initiative in the DRC. Therefore, the issue is one of capacity, but it is also one of choosing the appropriate method.
	On the issue of economic growth, we continue in support of European action for growth. It remains a realistic policy, and it is important that the EU presses ahead with its agenda of economic reform to enhance growth and job creation.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, will the noble Baroness draw some comfort and inspiration from the fact that 15 years ago a European Council broke down in irretrievable confusion in Copenhagen, leaving the European Union with a shortage of funds? On that occasion, a somewhat gloomy assessment from President Mitterrand was corrected by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. I rather had the feeling that, on this occasion, her corrections might go along her own Front Bench. However, two months later in Brussels, under the chairmanship of Chancellor Kohl, the Council came to an entirely satisfactory set of agreements, which were extremely beneficial to this country. Therefore, perhaps drawing some inspiration from that would be a good thing.
	Will the noble Baroness also commit the Government very firmly to supporting whatever the Irish presidency does to try to put this show on the road again? It will need help. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that the sooner it is done, the better. If it can be done in the early months of next year, I hope that the British Government will do everything to help that.
	Finally, can the Government help to achieve a settlement by showing how exaggerated are the accounts of the differences between the two formulas for voting, which have divided Europe in such a dramatic way? Perhaps they could publish some examples, using the qualified majority votes of recent years, to show whether the different systems would have made any difference at all. My own belief is that there is very little to choose between them, apart from the symbolic, which of course has become greatly exaggerated.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. It is always helpful to have a good, long memory. I take comfort and inspiration from the comments of the noble Lord. Of course we shall support the Irish presidency, as I said in my response to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. The Irish have said that they will take soundings and report to the March European Council meeting on whether it is possible to restart negotiations. As yet, they are not in a position to say how that will work out. We would all like to see a conclusion to this matter.
	On QMV and the different systems, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, makes a good suggestion about considering the decisions that have been taken recently and whether a different system would have made any difference. I know that the noble Lord is aware that issues of symbolism can be very important in the context of international negotiation.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, will the noble Baroness review her response to my noble friend Lady Williams in relation to the method of trying Saddam? I believe that I am right in saying that in East Timor and in Sierra Leone there was a joint bench comprised of local and international judges. While I entirely accept the thrust of her remarks in terms of ensuring that the Iraqis feel that it is their trial and presumably—although one should not say so—their conviction, the whole process needs to be of a calibre and a quality that is warranted.
	Turning to the major part of the Statement which concerns the European Council deliberations, I adopt the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who said that there is now a need to get the show on the road. That is true, but I suggest that an essential part of getting the show on the road is to get the British public and the public in other member states interested in what is going on, in having a modicum of understanding of what is going on, and in feeling to some extent, however vestigially, that it is their show. At present one thing that one can say with certainty is that the British public and, I suspect, the public of most if not all member states feel further and further away from everything that is being done in their name in Europe.
	I was surprised that in the Statement the word "democracy" in whatever form one chooses is not mentioned a single time. The beginning of the Statement states:
	"The negotiations which have been going on over the last 22 months have been about the effective management of the European Union".
	I believe that that is the view of many people but it sounds more like a multi-national company than anything to do with democracy. Towards the end of the Statement it states:
	"these negotiations are about the stability, security and prosperity of a Europe of nearly 500 million people".
	There is no mention of democracy. I put it to the noble Baroness that without real, rather than theoretical or constitutional, democratic underpinning, we shall go nowhere with constitutional amendments, however long or short or however broad or narrow they are. I ask the Government to start to take seriously—frankly thus far they have not—the need for the British public to be brought in on this great project. It should be a great project and I want to see it as a great project that has a long-term future. Unless we do that it will not have a long-term future.
	I ask the noble Baroness to cast her mind back to earlier today when the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that 600,000 brochures had been printed to help the public to engage more effectively in the consultation on the renewal of the BBC Charter. I see no reason at all—perhaps the noble Baroness will respond to this point—why every single household in the land should not have a well prepared, understandable, accessible explanation of just where we are on those constitutional negotiations. The Banham Local Government Commission, for example, put 12 million brochures through the doors of the county and metropolitan areas that were affected. I would be grateful if the noble Baroness would address her mind to that.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, has raised two main points, one with respect to communication and issues concerning the IGC and recent events and the other in relation to Iraq. On Iraq and the method of trial, as I said in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, we have constantly and consistently taken the view that it is for the Iraqi people to decide how to bring to justice those responsible for such crimes. As I understand it, an international court is usually established only if a country is unable or unwilling to prosecute those suspected of such crimes. In this case the governing council has made it clear that it is for the Iraqi people to try Saddam Hussein and others. We know that the knowledge and expertise that is required exists in Iraq. There will be international help for Iraqi judges and prosecutors, who will receive training to international human rights and international law standards.
	On communication and ensuring that the British public understand what is going on, I could not agree more with the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. We are committed to consulting the public. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is operating an online consultation on the draft constitutional treaty and my honourable friends Denis MacShane and Graham Allen launched that on 19th August. It will run until the end of the IGC. It provides an opportunity for the public to feed thoughts into the Government directly. So far there have been over 95,000 "readings". We have sought a wide range of views on the future of Europe through ministerial regional visits, seminars, radio phone-ins and interviews. I entirely accept that we need to do that consistently and that we need to ensure that the public are brought on board. That is why we have gone down the road of phone-ins, using the web and so on. It is important that the public feel engaged in this process.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords—

Lord Jopling: My Lords—

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, there are five minutes left. We have not heard from Back-Benchers on this side for a while.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that yesterday was an immense occasion—the arrest of Saddam Hussein. I am sure that all who saw the pictures on the television screen and realised that it really was Saddam Hussein who had been arrested will feel that the whole world should rejoice in and congratulate all those who took part in the arrest.
	With regard to the trial, which is becoming more and more of a real issue, does my noble friend accept that while there may be different methods of undertaking the trial, the suggestion, which I am sure was inadvertent—I took this from hearing the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, on the radio—that Saddam cannot receive a fair trial in Iraq will do immense damage in the future? Does she commend the view that if there is to be international acceptance of the result of the trial, which may be very difficult to achieve, the further away from Iraq that the trial takes place the less likely it is that it will be accepted internationally; and the closer to Iraq that it takes place the more possibility there is of international acceptance.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I thank my noble friend. It is very important that we remember that the Iraqi people have made it absolutely clear that they have a central role to play. The governing council established a special tribunal before the arrest of Saddam Hussein. It is important that not only the international community but also the people of Iraq feel that his trial is fair. That is why those who will be involved in the special tribunal will receive training from international human rights lawyers and others, so that it is internationally accepted.

Lord Jopling: My Lords, I am afraid that I was unaware that my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson—not entirely surprisingly—had resigned the Labour Whip. Does the Minister agree that one of the most hopeful statements in the Council's conclusions published yesterday was that part on the declaration on transatlantic relations? I am anticipating our debate later today. The most important words are in the first paragraph:
	"The transatlantic relationship is irreplaceable. The EU remains fully committed to a constructive, balanced and forward-looking partnership with our transatlantic partners".
	Is the Minister confident that those are not just words and that she sees some prospect of that view being reciprocated in the United States; that there are moves back to a multilateral approach to world problems in the United States; and that from both sides we shall not be subjected any more to the kind of tit-for-tat situations which have arisen—for instance, on the European side for countries seeking to set up independent command structures within the ESDP and, on the other side, the rather petty United States announcement that countries which opposed the war in Iraq will not be allowed to take any part in any of the contracts? Can she give us an assurance that the Government are hopeful that those fine words in the conclusions are likely to be put into effect?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, is asking me to do the impossible. I know that the noble Lord understands that international relationships are dynamic. The fact that that statement exists in the declaration on transatlantic relationships is very important indeed, because that statement is at the heart of the relationship between the European Union and the United States.
	We have always made it clear that we do not see it as an either/or relationship but as a both/and relationship. Having said that, that does not mean that differences will not emerge within the European Union. We have seen those recently with respect to Iraq and, most recently, this weekend on the voting system issue. It is most important and fundamental that there is a commitment on both sides to make that relationship work. I can assure the noble Lord that we shall work to ensure that that fundamental principle remains.

Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [HL]

Second Reading debate resumed.

The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, there is a city in this country about which some serious research has been done on levels of domestic violence and the effect of that violence on children. The statistics make grim reading. They are: of the 90 per cent of recorded instances of domestic violence which took place in family units over two years, 1,100 children were involved.
	It takes little imagination to see what devastating effects witnessing violence might have upon those children. I refer to the sense of powerlessness among young boys, unable to protect their mothers from their violent fathers and stepfathers—an anger which has to be dealt with in some way and which may well result in themselves becoming violent in adolescence and adulthood—and the same sense of powerlessness among young girls which may then become internalised and gnaw away at their own self-esteem.
	If in two years in one English city there were 1,100 children caught up in domestic violence, and one multiplies that figure by the number of cities in the UK, thousands of children would be seriously damaged by all that they see and hear. I concentrate on the children because they are the hidden victims whose voice is rarely heard. I welcome the fact that Her Majesty's Government are going to ensure that the Minister for Children will be involved in monitoring some parts of the progress of this Bill and its implementations.
	I also focus on children because at this time of year they are at the forefront of our attention. But so also is one of the causes of domestic violence, which is alcohol. Millions of pounds will be spent in trying to persuade us to enjoy ourselves and that that enjoyment can be associated only with alcohol. So the numbers of people getting "wasted", "trashed" or whatever phrase one wishes to use, will be huge. I speak as one who from time to time has drunks throwing up over my front doorstep. I can assure noble Lords that Bishops now live a very long way from the sweet calm of Barchester.
	If we could persuade the brewing industry that the amount of money spent on trying to persuade us to drink should be matched by a similar amount devoted to trying to educate young men especially about how to drink sensibly, we might get somewhere. It is reported that between 5 and 10 per cent of all calls to Childline mention alcohol as a serious problem.
	However, I want to suggest that within all the domestic violence that goes on there is also a profound spiritual malaise. If I am abusive or violent towards others or indeed towards myself, it suggests that I have no concept of my or the other person's inherent worth. It means that I do not regard myself or the other person as in any sense being made—as the Judaeo-Christian tradition would express it—in the image of God. So, I do not see myself coming from God, being surrounded by God or at death going towards God. Therefore, many of us are alienated in the profoundest way from our own inherent dignity and alienated from that worth, which in my view is conferred upon us by God as creator. That alienation is then expressed in cries of anguish.
	I simply do not know how intervention at the spiritual level in domestic violence can be achieved. I recognise, of course, what the Probation Service and social services try to do, and what they do heroically, in running group-work programmes, for example, for the perpetrators of domestic violence. I recognise also that intervention has to be multi-agency, but I wonder whether the Churches and other faith groups might be bracketed in to such work rather than being bracketed out. It is not that in such activities the Churches would engage in evangelism or proselytism—not at all—but they could and should be included as pastors and reminders that the spiritual elements associated with domestic violence may require as much attention as other elements. To convert—I use the word advisedly—from one form of living in which violence is the norm to another in which violence is abjured requires enormous moral and spiritual courage.
	I know that in some areas, churches are already involved in those issues through the provision of women's refuges and housing for the homeless, offering counselling and advice and our work in prisons. There are people and churches working absolutely at the front line and I hope that the Government will consult them.
	I carry in my mind an image that will always stay with me. It was a dark autumnal night when I answered my front door and found a woman standing there with her anorak hood pulled over her face so that I could not see it. She was supported by two women friends. I had no idea who she was, but her friends said that she was desperate to speak to me, so I invited her in. It was 20 minutes before she brought back her anorak hood to reveal her face. Her face was black and blue; it was cut; it was bruised; it was shiny with lumps; and she had some teeth missing. She was a battered human being who wanted just for a moment to touch not only a physical place of safety but a pastoral and spiritual place of safety as well.
	As we strive to understand the causes of violence, please let us not forget what volunteer organisations and faith communities already do to try to address those causes. As we, rightly, strive to offer compassion to the victims, please can we have some joined-up thinking that recognises that words such as "healing" and "wholeness" have a rich and long-standing religious, spiritual and human content?
	No matter how well meaning and brilliant our law may be—I am among those who welcome this courageous Bill—there are deeper issues that we as a society need to allow to surface on our social language map if we are to make any headway in tackling that grave social problem.

Lord Desai: My Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. My knowledge on the question is mainly academic—I have supervised some research students studying domestic violence—so what I shall discuss comes mainly from that angle.
	To begin with, I want to take up the issue raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, of the lack of definition of domestic violence. There is a definition in the White Paper, Safety and Justice. It states:
	"The Home Office defines domestic violence as:
	'Any violence between current and former partners in an intimate relationship, wherever and whenever the violence occurs. The violence may include physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse'".
	That is a good definition if we consider domestic violence in the context of a two-person arrangement, but, as we have already heard in several speeches, one welcome feature of the Bill is that it extends the definition of domestic violence to include harm done to children. We then enter a wider definition of a family within which there may be more than just the co-relation of two partners. There may be in-laws and children involved and, especially in some of our ethnic minorities, a joint family with a number of complex relationships.
	Something that definitely occurs on the Indian sub-continent but also here among South Asian families is the so-called suicide of young brides. Those suicides must be carefully investigated, because they are really an instance of domestic violence. It may not be exactly the male partner who may be responsible, but in the definition of who may be included in the net under Clause 4, we must ensure that such questions may be pursued. It may be that existing laws already account for such violence, but what happens within the family can be very well hidden by a conspiracy of silence and we must investigate such cases as questions of domestic violence.
	I turn to the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses. I welcome that proposal, especially the fact that the commissioner will be allowed to commission research, because we need to know much more about patterns of domestic violence. One finding that one of my students was able to substantiate with statistical evidence is that it matters very much whether victims of domestic violence—women especially—have a network of support somewhere in the community, either in the wider family or among friends. They must be educated, literate and able to seek out such networks of support—whether through the local church, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, or any other shelter group. That is very important. Some things will be known only once better research is commissioned by the commissioner.
	I very much welcome the Bill. I should have liked the commission to have more than just a chairman and deputy chairman—perhaps a full commission—but that is a matter of detail. I welcome the Bill and look forward to detailed work on it in Committee.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I join my noble friend in thanking the Minister for introducing the Bill. At first glance, it seems a sensible Bill with provisions to help what I am sure we can all agree is a vulnerable category of people. However, on closer inspection, there needs to be much more clarification of many clauses for the Bill to be workable.
	I do not think that there will be any opposition from these Benches to the principle that those who commit acts of violence on a husband, wife or live-in lover, whether they are men or women, deserve punishment. I welcome the inclusion in the Bill of a similar protection for same-sex couples, as they can also suffer violence at the hands of a partner. We must always remember that violence against a man in a relationship, although not as prevalent in the news or as widely acknowledged, is also a big problem—perhaps even more so as it is not so easily accepted by society and most men are reluctant to come forward.
	We have a wealth of legal knowledge with some very experienced politicians in this House who will, I am sure, achieve an excellent result in improving the Bill. I was a magistrate for more than 30 years and, apart from a few months, was on the domestic panel and its successor, the family panel. Over the years, I have listened to many women who have been victims of brutal and vicious violence. It must have been appalling for them and I assure your Lordships that it has left a lasting impression on me. I strongly believe that we must approach the Bill in a sensitive manner and from a human viewpoint.
	I am sure that we all recognise that human relationships can be very volatile and personal. They can be loving, passionate and caring right through to loathing, indifferent and callous all in a short space of time. Many people act towards their partners in ways in which we ourselves would not act, and say things that we would not dream of saying. We must therefore be careful to intervene only where there is real or threatened abuse and where someone needs the speedy protection of the law.
	I remember a case, when I was on the Bench, in which a young couple were having marital difficulties. In court the wife had become terribly upset relating the grizzly details of her husband's behaviour and was having trouble calming herself down, such was her anger. She asked for a glass of water in order to regain her composure. When it was handed to her, she threw it all over her husband. I am sure that once or twice we have all felt like doing the same thing, without ever having done it—and that happened in court in front of everybody. Many would have thought that such a gesture was the product of a doomed relationship. However, to my astonishment, by chance I saw them the next day walking hand in hand through a store as though nothing had happened.
	That court appearance was in the family court, a closed court for parties and their advisers. It illustrates that there are times when perhaps the court should not get involved in people's relationships, as it can have a detrimental effect. Perhaps the order made on that occasion brought the parties to their senses, but I doubt it, as, I am sorry to say, we got to know them well as regular visitors to the court.
	Although I understand the need for the power of arrest where a domestic incident is in progress or has just happened, and it is right that a vulnerable woman is not left alone with a violent man or vice versa, I worry that an enthusiastic police officer might use that power when he has interrupted a loud and regular argument. Once someone has been arrested and been through the adult court, an open court where anyone may attend, listen and report, is there any hope of a normal relationship prospering? I also worry that where children are involved, and one parent is charged under the Bill, the family would have a herculean task to make the relationship work again.
	The police are key to the Bill's success, and I imagine that, in the main, they will welcome that extra power of arrest. I feel, however, that it will be an extra burden. Under Clause 7, I sense that it will be hard for police to make a snap decision at the scene of a domestic confrontation. It cannot be that easy to spot who the victim is; for example, is it the man who suffers daily verbal abuse for months and finally snaps and throws something at his wife, or is it the wife? I hope that the Minister can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, and me that there will be appropriate and discerning training for the officers who will be called on to cope with such delicate, sensitive situations.
	It is sad that at what should be a festive and joyous time, for many families there will be brutality and misery behind closed doors. I hope that, with today's increased personal debt, we shall not see even more violence in the home. Finally, I look forward to Committee stage, when many concerns can be addressed. I am sure that it will be as helpful, instructive and constructive as this Second Reading.

Baroness Walmsley: My Lords, I welcome the Bill and wish to concentrate my remarks on Parts 1 and 2. Although I am conscious that there are men who are subjected to domestic violence, I shall approach the Bill from the perspective of women and children and shall judge it on its efficacy in protecting them. Domestic violence is more common than most people think. According to Home Office statistics, about one in four women experience it. Looking around the Chamber today, I notice that around 15 women are present. That means that probably three or four have direct experience of domestic violence. I am one of them. I speak from personal experience.
	Any woman who has been attacked by a partner will never forget it, even if it took place 25 years ago, and even if she has had a second, very happy marriage in the interim. It is a searing experience. So when I talk about the issues that the Bill seeks to address, I have a very particular insight.
	All violence is abhorrent but domestic violence is more appalling than most because it is a breach of trust. When someone whom you trust and used to love attacks you, it undermines everything that you used to think about yourself. It saps your self-confidence and your belief in yourself; after all, if the person with whom you chose to spend your life hates you so much as to attack you, what can you be worth? It is no small wonder that women often seem helpless, indeed hopeless, in the face of that treatment. But the very nature of domestic violence gives governments a particular problem, as it happens in the privacy of the home, behind closed doors and lace curtains, and the women who have been so undermined by it are often reluctant to admit to it because often they believe that it is their fault. An understanding of the situation should underpin government strategies.
	So what can governments do? New legislation is not always the full answer, but it can be part of it. What is needed most is a cultural shift—that there will be zero tolerance of violence in the home and an accessible and supportive programme of support for women who need it. Of course, what women would want most is for the violence not to happen in the first place, but how can governments affect that? They cannot be in every home, spying on families, nor should they be.
	There are two ways in which governments can help to prevent domestic violence ever happening. First, they can stop the cycle of violent abuse by sending out a clear message that violence against children will not be tolerated. Children are often involved. In recent research, referred to by the Minister, 70 per cent of children in refuges were found to have suffered violence themselves. We know that many child abusers were abused themselves as children. How unfortunate, therefore, that the Government did not take the opportunity when drafting Clause 7, adding common assault to a list of arrestable offences, to remove the defence of reasonable chastisement from defendants accused of assaulting children. Recently, the Health Select Committee in another place and the Joint Committee on Human Rights recommended that. That has been a good opportunity missed.
	Secondly, we can ensure that schools assist parents to teach personal self-control and discipline, to develop in young people respect for each other as equals and to educate them about what successful life partnerships are all about.
	The second best option is that, although violence starts, it then stops voluntarily. What can governments do to encourage that? Agencies such as Relate and other relationship counselling services do very good work and deserve more support.
	The third and worst though necessary option is to separate the perpetrator from the victim. That is where women need most help, because they are naturally reluctant to split up a family. Although abused children get considerable support from child protection units, family protection units are currently unable to offer the same level of support to women. We need an enormous increase in resources, and I very much welcome the new national helpline referred to by the Minister.
	Women suffer enormous pressures to stay with their partner, particularly in the home, especially if they have children. Those may include financial difficulties; lack of confidence that they will be able to support their children if they leave the man in their life; lack of alternative accommodation; work commitments; reluctance to take their children out of school or to change their school; pressure from their family or their partner's family and even reluctance to leave behind the family pets—although I recently heard about a wonderful charity that fosters family pets until the family in a refuge can be properly re-housed. The fundamental issue to be addressed is the extent to which the state should step into a relationship to protect victims at the cost of destroying the family unit, because there is no doubt that children need their fathers as well as their mothers. Unless the children are also being abused, we should support the victim and allow her to choose how to deal with the problem whenever possible. That is where the measures in Clauses 1, 2 and 3 come in and why I heed the charity Refuge's warning about compelling women to give evidence, in case that should be an unintended consequence of the Bill. However, we will examine the balance of these issues when we scrutinise the Bill in Grand Committee.
	I also welcome the proposals to deal with cases when two people may be guilty of a child's death but cannot be convicted because it cannot be proved which of them did it. I hope that the very existence of this Bill will send out a message that there is no hiding place for deliberate child abusers and killers. However, I have a question about Clause 5. When one of the two accused adults is a battered wife, to what extent will her subjugation to the violent partner be taken into account in a trial?
	I also echo the point made by my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood. The Bill fails to take into account Home Office proposals to make sure that child contact arrangements guarantee the safety of all parties, especially the children. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us how the measures in this Bill will link with measures to protect children in the forthcoming children Bill.
	I also wonder how the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses will link with the new Children's Commissioner. I look forward to your Lordships' House sending to the other place in due course a piece of legislation that will help to ensure that fewer women and children suffer the horror of domestic violence in the future. I urge the Government to surround the legislation with a vast increase and improvement in services for the families affected by it.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, it gives me tremendous pleasure to speak in this debate today because this is a Bill for which I have waited all my working life, as I will explain. As a Labour Party organiser, TUC official and national official for a large union, I came across domestic violence in all its horrors. One of the first cases that I encountered was of a woman who was beating up on a regular basis the man with whom she lived. That was in the 1960s. Domestic violence was not talked about, even when it concerned a man beating a woman. Women beating men was unheard of. The man in question had not sought help because he believed that it would show how unmanly he was. He was actually full of shame and self-hatred. I became involved only after he had been seriously attacked and had sustained a broken arm. Both people were members, I am sad to say, of a nearby Labour Party, and I became involved at the request of a bewildered male colleague. Of course, such cases are rare. The vast majority of cases involve men attacking women. I saw from an article in the Observer recently that 81 per cent of the cases of domestic violence involve men assaulting women.
	Domestic violence is nothing new. A number of writers about working-class relationships at the turn of the century highlighted that a Saturday night beating after a drunken evening was almost a matter of course for some women living with men, especially in the poorer parts of our cities. However, such descriptions have perhaps skewed our thinking about domestic violence, because it occurs in all types of households—professional and non-professional, rich and poor, black and white, young and old. On the latter point, older women are more likely to endure violence before seeking help, according to the Observer article.
	Because the terminology is "domestic" violence, it may surprise some that it is seen by the TUC and individual unions as a trade union issue. However, it most certainly is one. The results of domestic violence can be seen in far too many workplaces—offices, shops, schools, universities, the shop floor and any more. Domestic violence has a damaging effect upon employees' morale and upon the work in which they are involved. It impacts upon their health, attendance—particularly their punctuality—work performance and productivity. It is therefore an important industrial issue. It affects workers' job prospects and career development and, like other forms of bullying, it involves physical and sexual threats and intimidation. It often highlights financial dependence and increases a sense of helplessness and isolation.
	The TUC and many individual unions have drawn up guidance for work forces aimed at helping members who suffered domestic violence. They are definitely needed. In a survey conducted by the TUC, it was found that 54 per cent of women in trade unions had, or knew colleagues who had, experienced domestic violence. For a number of years, the unions have argued that, although employers currently have no legal obligation to take action on domestic violence, they have a moral duty to do so. The drawing up of a public policy at the workplace covering the impact and effect of domestic violence is one of the most useful things that trade unions and employers can do to help.
	The TUC's excellent guide highlights instances of domestic violence and how these have been dealt with: by providing a point of contact in a workplace; by ensuring confidentiality and discretion; by making special arrangements for employees to assist them to visit their solicitors, the police, a hospital or their GPs; and by taking steps to ensure that they are safe in their workplace. It is not unknown for men to arrive at the workplace to follow up their attacks upon women. It gives details of the excellent work carried out on all forms of violence by Leeds City Council. That work was sparked off by the Peter Sutcliffe murders and the violence involved in them. The TUC booklet also includes organisational contacts for those who need them in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
	Before I move on to the Bill itself, I will give one more example of the kind of work on domestic violence that I carried out for my union. It is often forgotten that trade unions have employees as well as members. One morning, I was asked by the head of the union's research department to talk to one of the research secretaries whose work had deteriorated notably and who was showing signs of great distress. Reluctantly, she told me why. Her partner was drinking heavily and becoming increasingly violent. They had two young daughters. When she knew that her partner was going out drinking, to save herself and her girls, she wrapped them in blankets, put them in the back of her car and drove them round London through the night, returning home only when she knew that her partner would have left the house for work the next morning. By the time that we met, she was doing this most evenings. She was utterly exhausted and did not know who to turn to. I am pleased to say that, in this instance, with the help of social services and a local women's refuge, she was able to escape her nightmare existence.
	That story highlights why I am so delighted and grateful to the Government for introducing this Bill. It brings hope to those who have not had any before. It brings further assistance to those who have tried to help victims of domestic violence. It gives a voice to those whose silence has been at the cost of pain, fear and abuse.
	Obviously, some criticisms have been made of the draft Bill. The Law Society is concerned, for example, that putting provisions for victims and witnesses in the same Bill as domestic violence may prevent full and serious consideration of all the issues involved. It pointed out that domestic violence brings its own special and particular needs, distinct from other victims of crime. I can see that reasoning, but we can overcome such difficulties in our considerations. I know that a number of children's organisations want to emphasise, quite rightly, how the needs of children—those suffering and witnessing domestic violence—must be recognised and borne in mind in our debate. The question of funding, which will be considerable, must be discussed in detail.
	I am confident that the strengthening that is needed will be accomplished. I am sure that the Minister will listen sympathetically and with her usual intelligence and compassion to the points raised in our debates. The Bill is a major step forward in the fight against domestic violence and its consequences.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I take the opportunity to thank the Minister for arranging a briefing meeting. I found it most helpful. I warmly welcome the main thrust of the Bill. The Bill contains a range of practical measures designed to ensure readier access to help and justice for victims of crime. Much of that was praised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, and by my noble friend Lady Thomas of Walliswood.
	We are dealing with something that is obvious on the surface: the extent of the violence that blights the life of the victim. What we have never fathomed is the hidden violence. There are the silent victims who will not complain for fear of the break-up of their relationships or, in many cases, loss of support, financial and otherwise. The violence is not peculiar to this country; no country is immune. We learn little about its impact on the quality of family life and the extent to which it affects young children growing up in such families. That is one reason why the Bill is a step in the right direction.
	Part 1 of the Bill and some of the provisions of Part 2 relate to domestic violence. For a long time, domestic violence was taken insufficiently seriously by criminal justice agencies. I welcome and endorse much of what the Association of Chief Police Officers has done, but the facts remain. The British Crime Survey shows that such violence amounts to a quarter of all violent crimes. Thirty per cent of women experience an act of violence by a male partner at some point in their life. As the Minister pointed out, two women are killed in the United Kingdom every week by current or former partners. Measures providing better protection for victims of domestic violence will have the strong support of all those who believe that victims are entitled to dignity and respect.
	It is one thing to have measures in statute that protect victims, but we also need a strategy to ensure that there is a programme of public education that spells out the rights of victims. It should cover questions such as how to seek help, who will provide help and what that help will entail. Nowhere is that more important than in our culturally sensitive communities. In many families, women endure violence but do not have the knowledge or resources to complain. That is unacceptable.
	It is not just physical violence. There are other forms of violence that we should take into account. For example, somebody mentioned forced marriages, trafficking in human beings and the forcing of women into prostitution. The Home Office working party on forced marriages, on which I served, has laid down some good practice. We should evaluate the project and see how it helps women victims.
	How far will the Bill achieve its objectives? Making common assault an arrestable offence will enable the police to act more speedily and effectively when such an assault occurs. However, it will still not be possible for an arrest to take place in all cases in which there has been a breach of a non-molestation order. Making a breach of a non-molestation order a criminal offence, as Clause 1 does, will enable an arrest to take place only if the victim wishes to pursue criminal proceedings. In other cases, the victim will first have to apply for an arrest warrant for breach of the non-molestation order to the civil court, unless that court attached a power of arrest when making the order in the first place. Will the Government consider providing for the attachment of a power of arrest to be standard when a non-molestation order is made?
	I mentioned the need for a programme of public education, as victims are unaware of their rights. There are countless organisations and individuals who provide help. Equally, there are the passive victims of such domestic situations. Children in those families need protection and support. When scrutinising the legislation, we must first establish how effective the application of present powers has been. Have they been used adequately? Are victims aware of what protection they can receive? More importantly, we must establish whether existing powers are under-utilised? If so, we must ask, "Why? What lessons have we learnt, and how will we put things right?".
	Extending the categories of persons who can apply for occupation orders to include same-sex couples is welcome, as is the extension of the categories of people who can apply for non-molestation orders. There is also logic behind extending the power of criminal courts to make restraining orders following conviction for offences other than those under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. However, there are problems about the provision for criminal courts to make such an order after an acquittal. It is undoubtedly true that, in some cases, victims need such protection, even though the criminal standard of proof cannot be established. The court best equipped to make such a judgment is the family proceedings court, and a streamlined procedure for a criminal court to refer the matter to the family proceedings court would surely be a better option.
	If we are to tackle domestic violence effectively, we need not only an effective legislative framework but a funding strategy that is sustainable in the long term. That point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. The £14 million announced by the Government in February for crime and disorder reduction partnerships to tackle the problem over a three-year period seems significant at first sight, yet it amounts to only £12,000 per crime and disorder reduction partnership a year. Some excellent work is being carried out to prevent domestic violence and to support those who suffer from it, including the provision of refuges, outreach work and helpline support. Many of those services are provided by the voluntary sector, including, in some areas, my own organisation, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. However, the development of that work is often significantly undermined by short-term and insecure funding. That means that projects are set up, work effectively but then fold when their funding ends. Will the Government develop a strategy to ensure more effective funding arrangements for services to combat domestic violence in parallel with changes to the legislative framework?
	I am a member of the Commission on Women and the Criminal Justice System. At a policy seminar, the commission heard evidence from leading academics and practitioners about the problems that face innovative projects in the voluntary sector. They are usually piloted for a period of between one and three years, so that they can be evaluated and mainstreamed, if successful. However, many fail because of funding or other resource problems. We believe that the voluntary sector offers a great deal of experience that should be utilised and properly resourced to deal with low-level offenders.
	We welcome the provision for a new offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. It will help to ensure that justice can be done in any case in which a child or vulnerable adult has been killed, following a lengthy period of abuse, even if it is not clear which of two co-habitants carried out the killing.
	We unreservedly welcome Part 3 of the Bill, which contains a series of provisions relating to victims and witnesses. They include a statutory code of practice governing the services to be provided to victims by criminal justice agencies; provision for the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate breaches of the code; the creation of a Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses; provision to put the Victims' Advisory Panel on a statutory basis; and the creation of a statutory basis for government grants to bodies assisting victims and witnesses. But I must add a word of concern about the code of practice. Clarity about the disclosure of information between the relevant agencies will be crucial to any move to give effect to the code of practice for victims. Without it, the beneficial effects of the code could be undermined. Although Clause 23 provides for the transfer of data, subsection (8) states:
	"nothing . . . authorises the making of a disclosure which contravenes the Data Protection Act 1998".
	I am told that, for many years, Victim Support has experienced severe problems in obtaining consistent referrals from the police for the purposes of providing support services to victims. That is despite Home Office Circular 44/2001, which was agreed by the Home Office, ACPO, Victim Support and the Information Commissioner, and a subsequent supporting agreement by Victim Support and ACPO. This is a problem for the other criminal justice agencies as well.
	Following legal advice, Victim Support proposed an amendment to the draft legislation (before it was published) stating effectively that if transfer of data was for the purposes of the code, it would be deemed to be consistent with the Data Protection Act. Perhaps I may ask the Minister why that proposal was not included? Is it likely to be included as part of the code of practice?
	At the same time as the Government propose to introduce this welcome legislation, they have brought forward proposals to devolve the funding currently given to Victim Support for local victim and witness services to local criminal justice boards so that they can make separate contracts for this work. Pilots are planned for the coming year, with a view to devolving the funding in all areas in the following year. That is a recipe for the fragmentation of services. It will jeopardise the effective work that Victim Support has carried out to ensure that local services sign up and operate high quality standards. We hope that the Government will reconsider this misguided proposal. Certainly, I will make sure that in Committee there is an amendment to ensure that the new funding arrangement is not counterproductive to work done by voluntary agencies, including Victim Support.
	It is disappointing that in the Bill which, refreshingly, contains generally welcome provisions, the Government should choose to include yet another attempt to whittle away at the jury system. Clause 9 provides for some offences to be tried by the judge alone in cases of alleged multiple offending. There may be some merit since the Law Commission has given its weight to that change. However, it would be helpful to tease out the Government's intention on the clause to ensure that it does not set a precedent for other areas of criminal justice legislation.
	Nevertheless, the majority of the Bill's provisions are positive and the intention to improve the treatment of victims and witnesses is shared by almost all noble Lords on all sides of the House. As one who sat in my earlier days in the domestic and juvenile courts, I have seen the trauma of victims of domestic violence. There is a need to put a stop to it—a full stop. In that respect, the Bill is a right step forward.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the Bill. Perhaps I may start by bluntly stating that, in my view, domestic violence essentially is an equal opportunities issue. I am not of course stating that no violence is perpetrated by women against men. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, said, that clearly is not so. Violence is about the inappropriate use of power; that is, the abuse of power. Just as violence against children is violence by powerful adults, the most likely victim in a domestic relationship is the female.
	Children are direct victims of domestic violence as well as indirect victims. The NSPCC and the Minister have drawn our attention to some cases, which the NSPCC's impressive campaign, Violence to Children Must Stop—Full Stop, makes clear. During more than 20 years on the inner London juvenile bench, I came across innumerable instances when children appearing before the court for other reasons clearly came from homes with a background of violent behaviour.
	In those early days, even the recognition of specifically sexual abuse of children within families was in its infancy. Straightforward domestic violence remained still barely a matter for the police to investigate, even in the unlikely event of the victim having complained. As we all know now, domestic violence occurs within all sectors of the community. But there are three major reasons why the problem has remained hidden for so long.
	First, there is the belief that victims have brought the violence on themselves. Secondly, the financial dependence of women meant that they were unable to leave the matrimonial home with their children so that they could start again, quite apart from them having nowhere to go. Thirdly—and perhaps more in middle-class backgrounds—the fear of family shame if neighbours knew. Some 25 years ago, a few of the braver victims joined with Erin Pizzey in setting up self-help women's refuges to which frightened women from serial inflictors of domestic violence could flee with their children. That was the beginning of a major change in attitude and in the culture of domestic violence.
	Today, thank heavens, there are many more voluntary and state resources to offer help, either through reconciliation or, failing that, rehousing and other forms of advice. In addition, women today have much more economic independence. As we have heard, despite all that, many victims of abuse remain reluctant to come forward. Even now, self delusion persists; in particular, the victim's belief that, even after repeated attacks, the violence will not happen again. As the Government's Safety and Justice paper points out, equally disturbing is the fact that research still shows domestic violence is, as the Minister said, sometimes deemed acceptable, even among the younger generation.
	Although there has been some change in attitude, it is important to remind ourselves of the sickening role that domestic violence still plays in society. Almost half of all female murder victims are killed by a partner or a former partner. But perhaps most horrifying, 30 per cent of domestic violence occurs when the woman is pregnant.
	Thus, the Government are right. Domestic violence remains an important issue still to be tackled. It is to be hoped that it is also an issue the public take increasingly seriously, as well as all political parties. When introducing his domestic violence Private Member's Bill in another place in June, John Bercow, a shadow Conservative spokesman, said that since his arrival in Parliament in June 1997, domestic violence had featured in no fewer than 365 written questions, 74 oral questions and at least eight Adjournment debates. Perhaps the issue has not been debated quite as often in your Lordships' House, but the number of occasions is growing here as well.
	I agree with the right reverend Prelate that the most important aspect is that domestic violence is almost certain to damage victims physically and mentally for the rest of their lives. The cost to the individual and to the economy must be considerable. Even more important, its effects could be long lasting. Domestic violence will influence the children—tomorrow's citizens—in those families and will influence their behaviour for years to come.
	Some of the most sickening cases of domestic violence occur when committed against both mothers and children or against mothers in the presence of children. Quite apart from the fear that children experience and the danger to them if, as some do, they try to intervene, we should not be remotely surprised when that pattern of behaviour—like sexual abuse of children, as mentioned by another noble Baroness—is carried into the next generation.
	All that underlines the case for early help and intervention, particularly for vulnerable families. It demonstrates the need for all school children to learn from an early age what good parenting involves and the importance of acceptable behaviour in all kinds of relationships. I should like to think that that is now happening within the recently introduced "citizenship" classes. But I remain somewhat sceptical about whether anything like enough curriculum time is being devoted to parenting and relationship-building skills. Management training routinely involves instruction on how to get the best out of employees. How much more important it is for children to learn early how best to manage relationships within their lives.
	In addition, we now need greater emphasis on, and respect and support for, the important and undervalued role of parents; that is, as others have said, fathers as well as mothers. There is a great deal more that I would like to mention and probe, but I shall limit myself to three points. First, we are told that the Government's strategy involves three stages; namely, prevention, protection and justice, and support, all of which are admirable objectives. One example of treatment, which could be both preventive and supportive, if available when a violent offender arrives in prison, is training in social and life skills. But what percentage of those convicted of such offences receive that form of basic education? Judging by the many complaints about the lack of resources for education in prisons, again I am not optimistic.
	Secondly, the plan to criminalise breaches of non-molestation orders and to make common assault an arrestable offence will, one hopes, help to reduce concerns about danger to children and, indeed, mothers when a court order allows contact with fathers under so-called "strict supervision". From all accounts, this form of supervision varies considerably. No one wants to stop responsible fathers from seeing their children if, sadly, the parents are not living together, but children's organisations are worried that cases of physical harm and even death have resulted when supervision has been lax. Apparently, no figures are available nationally for the number of deaths that are believed to have resulted from situations of this kind. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, it would be most helpful if the Minister could advise us whether the Bill addresses sufficiently these concerns.
	Thirdly, I turn to the new offence in Clauses 4 and 5 of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. This is, of course, a new legal concept for the United Kingdom. However, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the Law Commission has commented that a considerable minority of respondents to its consultation had reservations about these proposals. If not at this point, it is important that at a later stage we are told how much account has been taken of those reservations in the Bill.
	I want to end as I began by reminding the House that the elimination of domestic violence should be seen as part of the campaign for equal opportunities. The campaign in the UK has made considerable progress over the past 30 years. However, the most basic of all relationships, that between men and women, can provide a real basis for equality of opportunity only if violence in the home is rejected by all of us as absolutely unacceptable behaviour in a civilised society. To adapt the words of the NSPCC's campaign, domestic violence must stop—full stop.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, and I hope that she will avail the Committee on the Bill of her invaluable expertise.
	I should like to begin by thanking my noble friend for the care the Government have taken to consult most, if not all, the people concerned with these issues. It is right to stress, as did my noble friend, the consequences of domestic violence: they are very wide. She was also right to stress the consequence in particular, although not exclusively, of the effect on homelessness. I know about that as a Member of Parliament for many years.
	I also thank my noble friend for her outline of the Bill and for emphasising the value of the Committee stage in order to pursue further matters which need closer definition. I know that the House is agreed that this legislation is desirable, but I emphasise that, in certain respects, it is vital to peruse whether the Government have sufficiently defined certain matters. In that respect, a Committee stage with very few votes, and none from the Back Benches, is of great importance.
	The concept of ensuring that the victims of domestic violence are protected is long overdue and much to be welcomed. The same is true of the protection and support to be made available for the witnesses and victims of crime. For a long time, when I practised in the magistrates' courts from the 1950s right up until the 1970s, I thought that witnesses should be afforded protection of this kind. Counsel for the prosecution were often embarrassed by the determination of the defendant to menace witnesses so that they would not come forward. From my point of view, as someone who acted as a defence solicitor, I derived no satisfaction whatsoever from that situation. I often wondered whether the witnesses would ever recover from the threats uttered against them in the first place. I do not know; I never found out. But I do know that, palpably, justice was not done in those cases.
	I am glad that, under the Bill, the victims of domestic violence will include couples in same-sex relationships as well as those couples who have never cohabited. However, a problem which does give rise to some concern relates to the way in which such persons are defined. That is a point which needs to be aired in Committee and possibly at later stages.
	Turning to common assault, it is high time that it should become an arrestable offence. It will be open to the police to intervene and make an arrest, thus providing more protection for the victims of violence, which is to be applauded.
	I should like to ask my noble friend to be more specific than has been the case in the past as regards how much money is to be made available to implement the proposals set out in the Bill. That is enormously important so far as concerns the police and the criminal courts because they have the task of enforcing injunctions. How much can they spend? Furthermore, are the Government satisfied that, first, there are sufficient people properly trained in that behalf; and, secondly, that there are enough people available to do the job properly?
	I turn to the question of the criminal courts making restraining orders after acquittals. Is it right that the criminal courts should be responsible for imposing ancillary matters, which may be of the utmost significance—in no way do I deny that? But should they have the jurisdiction to do that? Will that not undermine, in the most salient way, the acquittal concerned? Should it not be for the family court to have that jurisdiction rather than the criminal court? In my view, it is vitally important that the personnel concerned, the judges and the lawyers, should have experience of the matters involved and, by no means least, of the children who might be affected. In my view it is clear beyond peradventure that victims do need to be protected, but I question whether the Government have gone about this in an entirely satisfactory way.
	I also support the idea of a Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, as does my noble friend Lord Desai. It is an invaluable provision that the Government have advanced but will it extend to the families of victims of crime and witnesses? It is right that the provision should cover all witnesses—both defence and prosecution—in all kinds of proceedings, including inquests and civil proceedings, in the same way that it covers criminal proceedings at the moment.
	I turn now to the victims' code that is envisaged. The complaints system which, via the commissioner, may be used by witnesses is wholly to be welcomed. Victims and witnesses should have an independent voice, and regrettably that is not always true at the moment.
	I also support the idea of a parliamentary investigator who will be able to make complaints and raise issues, but I should like to know exactly how that is to be done. How is the parliamentary commissioner to function? Is there a risk that other methods of raising complaints will become otiose? Is there a risk, too, that there will be some confusion between victims of domestic violence, who have special requirements, and those of other victims of crime?
	As I have intimated, I believe that the purposes of the Bill are wholly to be supported, but various important issues need to be broached in Committee without in any way endangering the main implications of what is at stake and which I and others fully support.

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, our debate today reaches to the very heart of our society, the essence of which concerns the quality of people's lives within families. The family forms the foundation for all subsequent relationships, growth and development and should be a place of love and security. We endlessly talk about it for we are all members of families of one kind or another. Where a veil of secrecy descends, where understanding and the possibilities of succour and support become so hard, is where the desperate depths of domestic violence exist. It is a hugely important and enormously complicated subject for, as we know, domestic violence crosses all boundaries of class, age, income, sex, race or geography.
	Last year a distinguished professional in the field described at a conference how her own father had survived years of violence to become a loving father himself but how his brother did not. The result was that the brother's son suffered mental collapse, tormented by the violence inflicted on him and troubled why his own father was so different from his uncle.
	Even if we have been fortunate enough to have avoided such dreadful experiences, we all have various relationships within families, friends and the wider community which imbue us with attitudes which bear on our beliefs and our behaviour. As the Minister pointed out, one in five young men and one in 10 women believe that violence towards a partner is sometimes acceptable. Where has that been learnt?
	The Bill is therefore to be welcomed in its aim of preventing and protecting victims and witnesses of violence as well as punishing perpetrators. Indeed, I would hope that the protection of those suffering from domestic violence should be the absolute priority, taking precedence over the punishment of the offender. I welcome inter alia making common assault an arrestable offence and the new provision of joint liability in cases involving the death of a child.
	The Bill suffers from weaknesses that I sincerely hope will be addressed—I am sure they will be—during its passage through your Lordships' House. For instance, the blurring of the criminal and civil law is concerning—as, for example, with the breach of non-molestation orders becoming a criminal offence and restraining orders being imposed following an acquittal in a criminal court. The former carries with it the risk that victims may be deterred by the criminalisation of a breach from seeking this useful remedy in the first place, particularly if the relationship is ongoing and where there is already the facility for attaching a power of arrest to orders where there is any suggestion of violence being an issue. However, I respect the support given to this provision by many women's groups and I am sure it will be discussed further. The latter risks the precious presumption of innocence if the order is imposed following an acquittal. Also, the adverse inference from a defendant's silence has serious fair trial implications and for the right of silence.
	Lastly, there is the provision for a two-staged trial where multiple offences are being considered and where the second stage of the proceedings may be conducted in the absence of a jury, thus reviving the question of the limiting of trial by jury. I am confident that my infinitely more able legal colleagues will be addressing these issues in more detail from these Benches, but I would welcome the Minister's comments.
	Domestic violence is defined in the Home Office White Paper Safety and Justice—and here I echo and totally agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai—as:
	"Any violence between current and former partners in an intimate relationship, wherever and whenever the violence occurs. The violence may include physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse".
	This is too vague. While the definition does now include same-sex relationships and people who have never lived together, there are a range of other relevant relationships such as forced marriages, honour killings, foster carers and, above all, those with children which are not specifically included. I understand that the definition in New Zealand is a very clear one. It might be worthy of some consideration by the Government, for clarity is all.
	While children may not be a "partner" in the "intimate relationship" of the Government's definition, or the primary object of direct physical violence in many cases, they are still integral to the domestic setting in another kind of "intimate relationship". Ninety per cent of children are present or in the next room while violence occurs—and if that is not direct emotional violence I do not know what is.
	Indeed, 70 per cent of children are at risk of direct violence from their mother's violent partners and, as we have already heard, one of the hideous statistics is that at least one child a week dies at the hands of their parents or carers. The Law Commission found that between 1998 and 2000, three children under the age of 10 were killed or suffered serious injury each week. Yet in the Bill children are relatively invisible whether as victims or witnesses of domestic violence.
	There is now enough evidence to show the causal link between a significant number of children who suffer violence and who then become perpetrators of violence themselves, even before they are grown up. Here I should declare an interest as I am on the committee for Barnado's, Scotland. In Stirling we have a project called Matrix, working with a group of anti-social, disruptive boys aged between eight and 11 and already into offending. There we have found that 90 per cent lived with domestic abuse.
	Another project, the Tayside domestic abuse initiative, gave me an example of work with a nine year-old boy who had real behavioural problems and had assaulted his teacher. His mother was being abused by his father. The assault happened on the day that his mother and sister were appearing in court for the equivalent of a non-molestation order. Some time later, when the court was considering allowing the father contact, the boy's behaviour seriously deteriorated once again and he was considered for exclusion. It emerged that the father had been back at the home, intimidating and violent. Thanks to the intervention of the worker, the boy remained at school, and the contact was not allowed by the court. Here was a child so at risk and completely vulnerable to the aggression experienced at home. Without professional intervention, he was trapped in a cycle of violence which was already being replicated in his own behaviour. He was both victim and aggressor.
	It is the internalising of violent behaviour repeated into adulthood which is the desperate additional dimension where children are concerned. We must address it and do all in our power to break this vicious cycle of violence.
	I, too, urge the Government to look carefully at including provisions on the face of the Bill around contact arrangements for children where the parent or carer is separated and violence has been suspected, and to require the sharing of all information on the situation between all parties so that the safety of all is guaranteed. The best interests of the child must come first, before those of the parent. My Tayside example demonstrates just how fearsome the prospect of contact with the father was in this case and how important the input of the support worker was, which resulted in contact being refused.
	Finally, I commend an initiative in Montgomeryshire, where the family crisis centre also helps male abusers with, among other things, the possibility of crisis accommodation. Helping perpetrators to change goes to the dark heart of the problem. Punishment alone changes little. Sometimes the reality of a refuge for a woman who has taken the brave step of leaving the family home is that she finds herself in a situation which presents new terrible difficulties. If she has a son with her, he may not be allowed in. She may find the children harder to control in the new situation and end up going home with nothing but a confirmation of the abusive partner's accusations of her inadequacy. On the other hand, if he leaves for other accommodation, the suffering all round is diminished and progress is possible. The fact that 23,000 children are accommodated in refuges each year and 110,000 need refuge support services speaks for itself. These refuges are a lifeline beyond price and are sorely stretched.
	The words of the children speak volumes, and more eloquently than we ever can. One girl said:
	"My friends don't want to listen anymore—it's been going on too long—I've become a broken record".
	A boy said:
	"I was petrified when Dad hit Mum and the police were called. I hate him . . . but I miss him too . . . I miss the things we did together".
	He is 12.
	I wish the Bill well. I also hope that some of its shortcomings will be constructively addressed so that its aims of protecting these children—who are our future—and preventing their suffering, are truly achieved.

The Earl of Rosslyn: My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as a serving police officer. During my 23 years' service, I have had operational responsibility for the investigation of domestic violence offences. More recently, when director of training for the Metropolitan Police, I have tried to provide a coherent programme of development and training for colleagues working in the field.
	I think it is fair to say that during those 23 years the police service has developed a more thoughtful, creative and robust approach to confronting domestic violence. Regrettably, the cost of operational failure along the way has been very high, but today, police and other agencies generally collaborate more harmoniously and effectively. This has been a key determinant in the progress that has been made. The development of good practice is also more widely shared between forces. Indeed, that collaboration extends internationally, and I feel particularly proud that we were able to develop a project to train police officers and volunteers as far away as the Kirov district in St Petersburg. This led to the creation of the city's first domestic violence unit which, during its initial 48 hours, received more than 1,000 calls. I know that all involved felt hugely encouraged when the Prince of Wales went to see the project during his visit to the city in July.
	Nearer to home, domestic violence, at its most serious, accounts for a quarter of all the capital's homicides. It accounts for one in four of all assaults in the United Kingdom, as we have heard, and for two murders a week. In the Metropolitan Police district alone, there were more than 100,000 recorded incidents in a year, and that in the context of the British Crime Survey estimate that only 25 per cent of domestic violence incidents are ever reported.
	Domestic violence is, as we know and other noble Lords have said, not limited to any social group, although some individuals are particularly vulnerable. However, the wide range of abuse experienced by victims distinguishes it from attacks by strangers. In addition to physical assault, threats and intimidation, domestic violence is often accompanied by other forms of humiliation and deprivation, typically repeated over many years and often incremental in scale and intensity. The long-term psychological effects on victims have been clearly demonstrated in research, likewise the impact of growing up in a household where domestic violence occurs.
	With such distinct and corrupting features, it is surely right that tackling domestic violence should be a priority for the police service, as it is in London, and there is much in the Bill to assist us.
	I particularly welcome the proposal to make common assault and breaches of non-molestation orders arrestable offences. The benefits to victims of a positive pro-arrest approach are increasingly understood, but at present the powers available to officers are somewhat ambiguous and often misinterpreted. The distinction between criminal and civil cases is also confusing for victims. These new measures would enable evidence to be gathered more effectively and for action to be taken to protect vulnerable victims at the earliest opportunity. The extensions proposed in Clauses 2 and 3 are equally welcome, enabling the police to protect the vulnerable without discrimination.
	I also hope that a full register of civil orders and injunctions, referred to in the Government's White Paper, will in due course be added to the police national computer, allowing police officers to deal appropriately with incidents with the fullest available information, no matter where in the country the incident occurs. I wonder whether the Minister is able to say anything more on that point.
	I also welcome the Bill's proposals for domestic homicide reviews. Working together with other agencies, the Metropolitan Police has, for the past two years, routinely reviewed domestic violence homicides. Such reviews seek to establish whether there are lessons to be learned from the case about how local professionals and agencies work together to safeguard victims of domestic violence. Those reviews demonstrate very vividly the impact of such crimes, beyond the horror of the offences themselves, with 30 per cent of such homicides being witnessed by children.
	The sharing of information between agencies has emerged as a critical feature, and the reviews have enabled us to identify a range of high-risk factors associated with domestic violence. A clearer understanding of these, and their early identification, may allow for more effective interventions for which—returning to an earlier theme—appropriate training will be critical.
	Finally, may I say a very brief word about the Government's proposal to create a parliamentary commissioner for victims and witnesses and for a code of practice to put their rights on a statutory basis? If I were to be mildly critical of the criminal justice process as a whole—and I acknowledge our own responsibilities here—it would be to reflect that it still too often seems to revolve around the offender and that there is still too little community or victim focus. Although there have been positive developments, the process is still too often slow and expensive, concentrating on punishment and blame rather than repairing the harm that has been caused. More attention to the needs of victims is therefore warmly to be welcomed and is a worthwhile objective in itself. It is also an important principle to assert, since there is widespread evidence that many victims continue to feel alienated by the criminal justice process. But for all its imperfections, witnesses remain the bedrock of the adversarial process, and I am very pleased to see their interests and importance recognised in this way.

Lord Borrie: My Lords, to my mind, personal violence is no less objectionable or criminal when it takes place in private than when it takes place in the street or in some other public place, and I welcome the points to that effect made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood. In many cases, domestic violence is more heinous because it is furtive and secretive and the perpetrator knows that generally there is no witness other than the victim. Moreover, the perpetrator often knows that he—and of course it is usually a "he"—can take advantage of the fact that if there is another witness besides the victim, that witness is a co-habitee who is too loyal, too scared or too financially dependent on him to give evidence against him.
	Even when a small baby or child has been killed deliberately by one or other of two adults—and that sort of case has been referred to more than once in this debate—if it cannot be demonstrated which one is responsible, under the present law they will both be acquitted of murder or manslaughter. Clauses 4 and 5 create a new offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. The name of the offence is "familial homicide", which is a bit of a complicated mouthful. It will not be necessary to show which member of the household caused the death or failed unreasonably to prevent it.
	The new offence, carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years, is much more appropriate and proportionate in many cases than the more modest charge of wilful neglect, which at present is the rather pathetic fall-back offence for prosecutors. However, I echo some of the points made by of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench. It will be important in Grand Committee to ensure that a blameless member of the household, who may perhaps be only 16 or 17 years old, is not improperly put at risk by Clauses 4 and 5.
	Clauses 1 to 3 tighten up the law very properly on domestic violence, by making breach of a non-molestation order a criminal offence. Many noble Lords have welcomed the widening of the application of such orders to cover same-sex couples. Because the maximum penalty for the new offence is five years, the offence is arrestable, so there is no need any more for the victim to apply to a civil court for an arrest warrant for civil contempt. Although under the Contempt of Court Act 1981, the maximum penalty for contempt is two years, I recollect that prior to 1981 the common law allowed an indefinite sentence to be imposed. Therefore, the penalty of two years is not a great legal tradition going back for centuries.
	I welcome, as I am sure that many noble Lords do, the current view of the police as expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn. Too often in the past, the police have regarded domestic violence as nothing to do with them. The fact that breach of a non-molestation order was termed a matter for the civil courts did not exactly help. The police could say that it was a civil matter. Now not only is breach of a non-molestation order to be a criminal offence, which I welcome, but the offence of common assault is to be given added seriousness by being made an arrestable offence in Clause 7. Most domestic violence cases are, at least at the beginning, common assaults. When the Bill is passed, the police will no longer have to satisfy the complex of conditions before they have a legal basis for making an arrest. As the Law Society says in its briefing, Clause 7 enables the police to intervene decisively—I like the word "decisively"—and so give greater protection to victims of violent domestic crime.
	My noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis mentioned a more controversial topic. Under Clause 8, restraining orders may be made even when a court has acquitted someone of a charge of common assault, for example, but the court believes that such an order is necessary to protect someone from harassment. On the face of it, as my noble friend said, such an order seems inappropriate when there has been an acquittal. However, an acquittal is not necessarily a verdict of innocence. It means that the prosecution has not satisfied the heavy criminal burden of proof. A restraining order under this Bill, following an acquittal, may be made only if it is necessary to protect someone from harassment. Why should one object to that?

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, since the 14th century, after an acquittal there has been a power to bind over a person to be of good behaviour? There is no breach of ancient principle.

Lord Borrie: My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention. I had that in mind when considering the subject this morning, although I did not introduce it into my speech.
	The changes in the law that we are asked to give support to in the Bill are useful rather than major. This is not a grand criminal justice Bill such as we had in the previous Session—and I am sure that many noble Lords are glad of that. The Bill amends statutes from as recently as 1996 and 1997. Your Lordships are not usually keen on being asked to return to the same subject so frequently. However, experience of the courts, the police, lawyers and social workers shows that some strengthening of the remedies is needed and some tweaking of the procedures required. Sanctions need to be imposed in respect of domestic violence. Surely, therefore, it is right that following consultation and the 2002 White Paper we should seek not to make a meal of things but to improve the law as it stands, in considerable detailed directions, as the Bill does.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I echo the broad support of my noble friend Lady Anelay and share her reservations. In the same vein, I share the reservations of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater of Butterstone, who made a quiet, proportionate speech. I am grateful to the Minister for her invitation that we should co-operate on problems of definition. She shall certainly have my co-operation.
	The concern is with the manner in which it is proposed to implement the variety of the good intentions in the Bill. On domestic violence, the breach of a non-molestation order under civil jurisdiction is to be dealt with as a criminal offence. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, pointed out—and this arises also in another context—the power to bind over has always been there in the criminal courts. As I see it, there is rarely any need to criminalise the position on one breach of one non-molestation order. If there is an element of persistent breach or injury, there may be such a need. But I think that, in principle, it is going to raise difficulties that are all too obvious, as neither the man nor the wife, when it comes to the point, wishes to indulge in a criminal prosecution. It is a practical problem. Apart from that, it is not necessary unless there is the persistent element, and that could be cured as a matter of drafting.
	Clause 4 deals with causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult. All I wish to say to your Lordships is that there has to be some clarification of the burden of proof as drafted—it is not satisfactory as it stands—and also some consideration of the definition of a member of the household.
	Clause 5 deals with the drawing of the inference where there is no case to answer. My noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns pointed to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. At her request—and I would ask for the co-operation of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, on this—the Joint Committee on Human Rights has been apprised that the Committee stage will be about 5th January. It is disposed to provide a provisional opinion, an opinion or to entertain correspondence on the incidence of the convention on Clause 5. That would be helpful when we came to debate in Grand Committee.
	So much for Part 1. I turn to Part 2 and the restraining order on acquittal under Clause 8. The order is far too widely drawn. Indeed,
	"anything described in the order",
	could constitute a wholly unacceptable invasion of privacy, quite apart from the convention on human rights.
	One then comes, in Part 2, to Clauses 9 to 12, which make a general provision of a procedural nature applicable to all multi-count indictments that inhibit the right to trial by jury save on sample counts. I quite agree that a way has to be found on how to deal with these multi-count indictments, but I respectfully suggest that this is not the way. For your Lordships' critical consideration, it is proposed to table an amendment in substitution for Clauses 9 to 12; that is, to introduce the procedure to be implemented by rules of court for such matters to be dealt with by a judge of the High Court at a pre-trial hearing, subject to review by the trial judge, and in effect to provide a procedure to reduce complexity and length of trial on all multi-count indictments in the interests of due and expeditious dispensation of justice.
	On implementation of these provisions, there should be introduced rules of court to ensure that appropriate directions on the form of the indictment and on other matters arising on the definitions should be given by the judge of the Crown Court at a pre-trial hearing, subject to review by the trial judge before arraignment. As part of that procedure, the judge of the Crown Court would have to consider these matters on the depositions before the hearing and give an indication of his views, on which he would receive representations and then make up his mind, not only on this point, but generally, because this is a general provision. I refer to severance of counts, directions for trials, designation of sample counts, directions of other counts to lay on the files, election whether to proceed on the conspiracy count or on substantive counts where there is a replication of the substance, and all sorts of ancillary directions which could produce and reduce the length and complexity of trial.
	I turn, finally, to Part 3. Something has to be done about victims; but, indeed, it has to be done about victims where no complaint is made and where no person has been charged. I respectfully question whether the complex, tiered, bureaucratic structure of Clauses 13 to 25 is really at all appropriate and will serve the end to which we all wish it to be put, or whether indeed it is apt or requisite, with a commissioner in Schedule 1 and the advisory panel. I share the concern as it was put by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood. She gave a shrewd warning of muddle and ineffective and inadequate consultation. I could not put it better than she did. She put it very moderately, but it was a very telling speech.
	I come to the last issue that I shall raise, in Clause 15, which also concerns the victims. There are two limbs as regards the status of the code of practice. The two limbs, in context with legal efficacy, are self-contradictory. A code of practice means nothing unless you understand its status in terms of legal efficacy. So what you have is the old oxymoron. That, assuredly, will require attention.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I, too, very much welcome the Bill. It deals with extremely important issues about which we all care deeply. I shall concentrate my remarks on domestic violence and the abuse directed against older people. I do so partly as a patron of Action on Elder Abuse, which I helped to set up in 1993 when I was director general of Age Concern.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, said when she spoke about domestic violence generally, abuse against older people can be physical, emotional, psychological, financial, verbal, mental or sexual. It can lead to death but more often involves cruelty of varying degrees, and it is often of a domestic nature.
	When caring for a frail older person at home, a carer can be marooned for 15 years or more in a job that will end only with the person's death, be that person a wife, husband, aunt, uncle, grandparent or whoever. This is a very difficult set of circumstances for anyone to cope with emotionally. It can lead to guilt, despair and unspoken wishes when, for example, a loved one with dementia becomes completely unrecognisable as the person he or she once was.
	Vulnerable adults vary enormously. We all know that some can be delightful, charming and grateful for the care that they are given. However, others who displayed negative traits in their younger days may find that those traits become exaggerated as they get older leading to very much more demanding behaviour than anyone can cope with. They can make life hell for a carer. In those kind of cases action to prevent abuse is absolutely essential—real respite care, quality community care and so on. Just as important as this Bill is the need to ensure that care is there when it is needed and that it works for the benefit of the carer and of the cared person. However, when abuse occurs, domestic or not, we have to make sure that the law is there to protect the victim.
	For many years it was thought that this type of abuse was very rare and restricted to certain groups and sectors in society, and that it never occurred among some minority groups, for example, for whom respect for their elders was part of their culture. However, research over recent years has shown that to be a fallacy. Unfortunately, it occurs among all ethnic and socio-economic groups and is much more widespread than was previously imagined.
	Action on Elder Abuse estimates that between 500,000 and 900,000 older people suffer elder abuse, but we need more information on its prevalence and what proportion of this is domestic. For example, much of this abuse might be a continuation of domestic abuse in a family with a history of violence.
	I therefore welcome the Bill as it is a firm step in the right direction, but I am a little unclear—given the Minister's understandable focus on women and children in her opening speech—how much attention in the genesis of this Bill was given to tackling domestic elder abuse. I hope that the Minister can reassure me.
	I welcome in particular Part 1 of the Bill, which includes the new charge of unlawful killing of a vulnerable adult. In Clause 4(6), the definition of a vulnerable adult is very broad. While old age is not as such a defining factor of being vulnerable, age plays a significant part for some very old people as they are unable to remain independent. They no longer earn their keep and their resulting poverty, and their need for help in every-day tasks can lead, and often does lead, to their vulnerability. The important words here are,
	"a person aged 16 or over . . . [who] is significantly impaired through physical or mental disability or illness".
	Can the Minister confirm that I am right to assume that the Bill's provisions apply to people who have never cohabited but live together, for example, two sisters, a mother-in-law with a son and so on? I welcome the provisions of Clauses 2 and 3 to extend coverage to same-sex couples and non-cohabiting people.
	As I have said, vulnerability can be multi-faceted and is not just caused through mental incapacity. We have to do more to recognise elder abuse. I mean by this that we must educate the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, nurses and social workers, among others, to recognise it and tackle it. Frankly, we must also educate the general public that it is as unacceptable as child abuse, and seek to give its eradication as high a profile as that very worthy cause gets in the media. If even cases of alleged unlawful killing can go unpunished, is there any hope that we can deal with less serious but more common cases of elder abuse unless we tackle the matter? For example, a 78 year-old woman died five weeks after moving in with her son-in-law and was found to have a catalogue of 60 injuries—razor blade cuts, cigarette burns, bruises and so on. More than 2 years later no one has been charged with her murder.
	I have one further question about Part 1. I am unclear what is the definition of a household. Will it, for example, cover domestic violence in sheltered housing, other communal living arrangements or long-term care homes, which become the home or domestic setting for a long-term resident? I wonder whether this might have to be spelt out more clearly in the Bill.
	Part 3 of the Bill concerns support for victims. My worry here is that victims are often unwilling to make a complaint, or may not be able to do so due to their vulnerability. For example, the elderly mother of a violent son may feel that making such a complaint reflects on her failure to raise her child successfully. Another victim may fear reprisals. For example, a victim in sheltered housing may worry that the warden against whom she makes such a complaint could take revenge for that. In that respect I welcome the announcement of the new helpline. The helpline of Action on Elder Abuse has been running for six years and has taken more than 5,000 calls, of which less than one-third were from victims; the majority were from relatives and care workers. I also welcome the Victims' Advisory Panel. I hope that it will include experts from the field such as experts from the charity, Action on Elder Abuse.
	In conclusion, I congratulate the Government on introducing this important Bill. I hope that it will play a role in helping to tackle domestic abuse of all kinds against people of all ages.

Baroness Pitkeathley: My Lords, like all noble Lords who have spoken and like anyone who has been witness to the effects of domestic violence in their professional life, or indeed, in their personal life, I, too, welcome this Bill and commend the Government for being willing to tackle an issue which was for too long ignored in our society.
	As a social worker I must own my share of responsibility. Like other noble Lords, I remember when this issue, and, I am ashamed to say, that of sexual abuse of children, was a no-go area.
	The results of turning a blind eye are all too apparent in the fear, injury and even death which vulnerable adults and children have suffered. Tributes are due not only to the Government for tackling these issues in the Bill but also to the many voluntary organisations that have long campaigned to obtain protection for victims and adequate punishment for the perpetrators of domestic violence.
	Anyone who has been a social worker could tell many a tale of police who would not interfere in what was then called a "domestic" and of women who measured the worth of their husband by the fact that he did not "knock her about" on a Saturday night in societies where physical abuse of women was commonplace. However effective we become at punishing those who are violent to their intimates—I believe that this Bill will be effective in that regard and, indeed, at closing loopholes in the law—our prime concern must surely be to ensure that violence is prevented in the first place. I want to raise issues in connection with that which I hope your Lordships will not think are sidetracks or diversions. I preface those remarks by reminding your Lordships—several speakers have alluded to this—that violence is not always of a physical nature. Verbal violence can also be extremely damaging to those who suffer or witness it.
	Let me first mention violence within a relationship where one person is the carer for another—a matter so eloquently referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I welcome answers to the questions that she raised, although in the interests of time I shall not set them out again. As she reminded us, the issue of elder abuse is very well documented thanks to the splendid work carried out by organisations such as Action on Elder Abuse. The stress which can result from being a full-time or even a part-time carer is similarly now well understood thanks to the work of carers' organisations, such as Carers UK, and the attention given to carers by the Government.
	We must always be mindful, however, of the fact that there is a huge difference between a carer temporarily losing patience and being angry or even lashing out, and sustained abuse over a long period. Similarly, there is a major difference between someone who is suffering from, say, dementia verbally or physically abusing their carer as a result of their condition, and someone who is habitually violent towards the person caring for them.
	The research shows that, when there is repeated violence in a caring relationship, it is almost always a result of a pre-existing abusive relationship. All family caring takes place within a pre-existing relationship. If someone was not already the spouse, daughter or son, they would never become the carer, and we all know that family relationships are very variable in their history and quality. Would anyone be surprised if a daughter who has been sexually abused by her father as a child and is then expected to be his carer, carrying out the most intimate of personal tasks, used her new position of power over her father to perpetrate violence against him? There are women in that position; I have met many of them.
	Can we really blame a wife who has been regularly beaten by her husband in the past if she is tempted to retaliate, either physically or verbally, now that he has Parkinson's disease? Indeed, it seems to me that the only wonder is that those situations do not occur more frequently and that most people, whatever the history of the relationship, care willingly and, when they can, with love, considering it their family and public duty to do so. Out of 6 million carers, who are often in the most stressful of situations, incidents of violence are in fact extremely rare.
	What we have to do is ensure that no carer who has faced such problems is ever placed in the position of having to agree to be a carer when all his or her instincts rebel against it. All carers or would-be carers are now entitled to an assessment of their circumstances, and it should be part of that assessment process to review the relationship, including the wishes and needs of both the carer and the cared for. No carer should ever be expected to take on the role where the relationship is or has been an abusive one, and no person in need of care should be put in that position either. That will be an important step to reducing the risk of violence.
	Aside from caring situations, we can help to reduce the incidence of domestic violence by ensuring that professionals who are likely to come into contact with the results of abuse at an early stage—nurses, health visitors, casualty officers and so on—are alert to the signs and see it as part of their treatment to provide information about protection and redress and, when it is enacted, the extra protection that the Bill will provide. The message that domestic violence is simply not acceptable, no matter in what circumstances it occurs, must be understood and spread by everyone. Changing society's attitude to violent behaviour of any kind is the key.
	A further contribution can of course take place by changing the attitudes of those to whom we refer as victims. If such people can be more assertive, and if they can be encouraged to have more self-esteem and be more empowered, they will be less easily oppressed or allow themselves to remain in a risky situation. We must pay tribute to the tremendous work which has been done in that regard by voluntary and community organisations.
	Another way to prevent violence to which I would like briefly to draw to your Lordships' attention is the use of new technology. Other noble Lords may be aware of it, but I have only just realised that personal alarms, long used to help older people maintain independence, are extremely useful in situations of potential violence and are widely used, as I understand it, by police forces throughout the United Kingdom. Personal alarms can alert the police or a professional response centre to potential dangers immediately, enabling the potential victim to feel safe and maintain independence.
	In short, I hope that we shall remember that the Bill and its effects need to fit into a programme of prevention of violence as well as tackling it when it occurs.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: My Lords, I wish to join others in congratulating the Government on the introduction of this legislation. I pay special tribute to the Solicitor-General, Harriet Harman, for her energy and commitment in driving the Bill so that we now see it coming through Parliament.
	As many have said, domestic violence has been for too long a trivialised issue. It has not been treated like other crimes. For a very long time, many of us who have campaigned on it have felt that it has been a slow process to get to this stage, where there is wide acceptance that it is the root cause of many other social ills. If we could engage with domestic violence with proper seriousness, many other areas of crime, misbehaviour among children and problems of an emotional and psychiatric nature would be much lessened.
	It is a long time since the idea of the domestic being something that took place behind closed doors and should be sorted out within the family has been spoken about. We no longer have that view expressed publicly, but there are residual feelings that, somehow, domestic violence is not the same as other crimes. The reason for that is that there are evidential problems, which have been referred to by others including the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. It is a difficulty when events take place in privacy between two persons, as that sets up problems in our courtrooms.
	Even where there are witnesses, the problems concern people coming forward. If the witnesses are children, particularly very young children, the sense that it really would not be good for them to be introduced into the court process is accepted by us all. Neighbours very often simply do not want to get involved. I have often represented women in the courts who have been beaten in public places, and they will describe how others have rushed by rather than be in any way drawn into the event.
	It is great that the taboo has been lifted. We now accept that domestic violence is a social ill that crosses all classes and is found in all communities. I work very closely with an organisation called Southall Black Sisters, which has done incredibly powerful work, particularly in the Asian community, around issues of domestic violence, which were unspoken for so long. In close communities there is often a sense of shame about even speaking out about domestic violence—about the ignominy that it brings on the community—so the community closes ranks to prevent discussion of the issue.
	I welcome the fact that this legislation has broadened the debate, and that it has been very clear that it extends to all manner of couples and, indeed, might extend beyond that to violence within a household. I want to endorse what was said so powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. Like me, she is a patron of Action on Elder Abuse, which covers a serious area where abuse still takes place. It is very rarely spoken of, and I cannot think of many cases that come before the courts.
	The reason that the police had difficulty with the cases for so long was often that women themselves would not want to testify against their partner. They would be prevailed on to withdraw their complaints, not only by their spouse—the man who was battering them, the father of their children—but by his relatives due to the effect that those complaints about the main breadwinner would have on the family as a whole. For those reasons, women would often retreat from the prosecution on which they had been encouraged to embark.
	The Bill will help in expediting the processes so that those women—so often mothers of young children—do not have to go trailing between criminal and civil courts, trying to get injunctions but also to proceed with a prosecution, and that we do not have the terrible problem of delay that allows pressure to be brought to bear on women to withdraw their complaints.
	So I very much support the pro-arrest approach that is at the base of the Bill. I believe that we need to have an arrest attached to common assault, so that the abuser can immediately be taken into custody to give the woman some space and evidence can be gathered from her and those around, without the problems of having to obtain a warrant. It is also important that a power of arrest is attached to the non-molestation orders which the criminal court can now make. That business of having to go from the criminal court to the civil court to obtain an order became a nonsense.
	We have also had some distortion of the proposal that a judge might be able to make such an order when there has been an acquittal. I have often appeared in cases where someone is charged with a particular assault. For example, in one case I represented a man who was charged with pouring boiling fat over his wife. He accepted that he had been fighting with her; that there had been assaults upon her; and that they were screaming at each other. He said that he saw fat smoking in a chip pan on top of the cooker. He ran to take hold of the pan, but the handle was so hot that he let go, fat went everywhere and his wife was scalded. He said that it was not a deliberate assault. He was acquitted by the jury of that assault, I think rightly, but the history of abuse was still present. I think that it would have been right for the judge in those circumstances, given the man's own admission of those assaults, to have been able to make a non-molestation order based on the evidence of the other matters.
	I would like to see that reflected in the press reports; that there would have to be evidence before a judge could do that. He would not make such an order if there were an acquittal and no evidence of anything else. Only where there was clear evidence of a course of behaviour would a judge seek to rely upon it. Unlike my noble friend Lord Borrie, I do not believe that it is a question of a judge gainsaying the verdict of a jury with the words: "Well the jury may have acquitted you, but I think you were up to no good". It is not for a judge to do that, and that is not the intention of the Bill. The intention is that where there is other clear evidence of a course of conduct, the judge can act by making a non-molestation order based on proper evidence.
	An issue that causes me some anxiety is standards of proof. We must be clear that before a person has his liberty removed, and where there has been an alleged breach of a non-molestation order, it is critical that there is a high standard of proof. We do not want to see people's liberty removed on the balance of probability. So the breach of an order would have to be made, I submit, on the normal criminal standard. I hope that that can be ironed out in Committee.
	I am glad that there is to be a homicide review. I am unhappy about hearing provocation being described as something that is used only by men. I represent many women in homicide cases who are able to invoke the provocation defence and I would be reluctant to see that removed on the basis that it does not serve women well. In recent years, the law has developed in such a way that it can be positively used for battered women. The defence should be gender-free, if that is possible.
	I turn to the new offence of allowing both parents in a household to be charged with a domestic homicide to prevent them both escaping conviction over the death of a child. While I understand the sentiment attached to the issue, like the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, I am concerned about one matter. A number of years ago, I represented a young woman who was on trial with her partner, both charged with causing the death of a baby. The little girl died in horrible circumstances. It was clear that she had been punched in the stomach and that there had been rupturing of internal organs. The young woman I represented was a battered woman. She was terrorised by a deeply violent, psychopathic man. Eventually, evidence came to light showing that she was so traumatised that she was unable, even at the police station, to feel free from his power and to speak of his behaviour. She was in such terror of him.
	When someone is so tyrannical, there could be a failure of justice if both partners are automatically convicted on the basis that they remained silent. I hope that in Committee we will tease out that charge to allow for circumstances in which there clearly is domestic violence of such a level that one of the partners might feel incapable of speaking out.
	It has become fashionable to say that domestic violence is perpetrated on men as much as on women, but I want to put that statement to rest. Of course there are women who are violent towards men and I am sure that there are men who live in terror of their female partner. But it is very rare indeed to find such a level of fear inculcated that a man ends up being incapable of freeing himself from a relationship. It is rare to come across men in that situation, but I am afraid that one comes across women in that situation—and more often than people imagine. There is a sense of being paralysed and of suffering such a degree of helplessness that one cannot free oneself from a relationship. I have seen that with women clients on a number of occasions, but I do not believe that that level of terror is often created by women on men. It relates to the imbalance of power within relationships, and we all know from where that derives. It is to be hoped that in the new world we are creating, in renegotiating relationships, we will see much less of that, but I want to put paid to the idea that there is an equality of arms in this area. There is not.
	The terrible pain and anguish felt by children on seeing parents involved in violence has been spoken to by many in the Chamber. We heard the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, speak with such humanity about the way in which children suffer. We also heard my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley speak of people's complicated feelings about loving those who abuse them. The complicated nature of the human condition can allow those things to live in the same heart so that you can hate the person who abuses you or your mother, yet at the same time care for that person and want him or her still to be a part of your life. That is a problem that we face in the courts in dealing with domestic violence. It is why the problem is so difficult. It is not an easy path to go down. It is not exactly the same as all other crimes, but we must try to get it right.
	Finally, while I pay tribute to the Government for all the good stuff, I feel that yet again we are seeing the rearing of that ugly head—a despising of the ordinary person who performs his role on a jury. The Government seem unwilling to see the benefits of jury trial and we are again seeing the salami slicer coming at juries, even in this Bill. I therefore ask them to look again at the part of the Bill which suggests that it would be enough for a jury to try a sample charge and for the judge to deal with everything else thereafter. It is a recipe for clearing the books and the situation that many lawyers involved in criminal trials can describe. When someone is brought before the courts charged with burglary, everyone assumes that every burglary that has taken place in the area must be down to him. The difficulty is that such assumptions are readily leapt to.
	The pressure on the police in respect of clear-up rates is so considerable that this part of the Bill may well be misused. Therefore, I ask noble Lords to examine the Bill very carefully and to consider some of the reservations expressed by others in this House, which suggest that there must be better ways to deal with the matter. I also hope that we may see an end to attacks on the jury system.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, the Bill has been warmly welcomed on all sides of the House. First the Minister and then the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, agreed that legislation is only part of the solution to the problem of domestic violence. Amnesty International expressed it very well when it said it believed that women and children who are affected by domestic violence deserve the very best protection, support and access to justice that the Government can provide. It said that this legislation should be a starting point and added:
	"We welcome the Bill but believe that it must be supplemented by a broad, comprehensive and fully resourced national strategy to eliminate violence against women".
	I believe it was with that sentiment in mind that the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, called for more resources. My noble friend Lady Linklater said that preventing violence and protecting a partner and children takes precedence over punishing the offender—a sentiment with which, somewhat surprisingly but welcome none the less, the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, agreed.
	Like the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, my experience in this area is in domestic homicide. However, for about 13 years earlier in my career, both as a solicitor and as a young junior counsel, I was concerned with domestic violence. I found that its typical cause was the desire of one partner—sometimes influenced by drink or drugs and usually through feelings of inadequacy—to exercise power and control over his partner. It would manifest itself not only as physical attacks but also as isolating and humiliating the woman, reinforcing her sense of worthlessness and threatening her and her children with physical violence. Then, by contrast, and in an attempt to make things better, the partner would make himself seem vulnerable with comments such as, "If you leave me, I'll kill myself" or "I've been a real bastard with you but take next weekend off with your friends". Having persuaded the partner to remain, the cycle of violence would continue. In my experience, that is a typical case.
	I shall direct my remarks, first, to access to justice. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley reminded us, today abused children are given considerable support through child protection units. They and their families are told how cases are progressing and they are supported through the trauma of court proceedings, which are generally fast-tracked. By contrast, a woman who has been the victim of domestic violence makes a complaint but then becomes lost in the system because cases are not fast-tracked. They take time to be heard, and courts do not offer the same level of support in their procedures. Unless complainants have the network of support to which the noble Lord, Lord Desai, referred, they develop a sense of helplessness.
	Some police officers have regarded a "domestic" as low-level crime and have not understood domestic violence at all—in particular, why abused women return to their abusers and refuse to support criminal proceedings. I was delighted to hear the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, say that police attitudes are beginning to change. The reasons that women suffer such pressures were outlined very movingly by my noble friend Lady Walmsley.
	The difference between civil and criminal proceedings is that the former are victim-led—that is, the victim institutes the proceedings and controls how they progress with the assistance of legal advice—and criminal proceedings are evidence-led, whereby the police and the CPS institute and control the proceedings and are entitled to act, regardless of the victim's views. As referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, the fundamental issue raised is the degree to which the state steps into a relationship to protect a victim, sometimes at the cost of destroying that relationship altogether.
	However, domestic violence is not a private matter; it is a matter for the state. The state must become involved because of the effects upon the family in the broad sense—upon the children. Very frequently, abusers are adults who were abused themselves as children, as, again, my noble friend Lady Linklater pointed out. However, legislation which tilts the balance towards greater state involvement must be carefully examined, and we hope to do so during the passage of the Bill.
	Any assault or breach of the peace is already a police matter and may lead to criminal charges. But the proposal in Clause 1 is for the Crown Prosecution Service to bring a breach of the molestation order already made in the family court on the civil burden of proof. The suggestion is that it should bring that breach before magistrates or before the Crown Court; in other words, that there should be a cross-over from civil to criminal proceedings. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, in querying that proposal and, for the first time that I can remember, I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on this issue. I believe that such matters are better dealt with in the civil court.
	At present, a breach of a non-molestation order is treated as a contempt of the civil court. However, that is the court that made the order. The application will have been heard initially in the family court and will be heard again, often by the judge who made the order and who will be fully appraised of all the issues which caused the order to be made in the first place, including those of contact with the partner and the children and so on. The standard of proof that the victim must satisfy is the civil one—the balance of probabilities. I am not sure that I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, when she said that a breach of a molestation order must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. I believe that the civil balance is sufficient.
	The Government's purpose in making the breach of a molestation order—a civil order—a criminal offence is not clear from the White Paper, Safety and Justice. Is it a matter of speed? The decision to prosecute for breach of a non-molestation order must go through the police to the Crown Prosecution Service and the criminal court must address the family problem afresh. We learn from paragraph 11 of the White Paper that the CPS is against the setting up of specialist domestic violence units within its own organisation. Therefore, the CPS does not want that burden.
	Will things go faster than if the victim, with the assistance of a lawyer, takes the matter to the civil court? Perhaps the idea is to utilise the specialist domestic violence courts. They were promised in the Labour Party manifesto and have been piloted in Leeds, the West Midlands and west London. However, so far, those courts have dealt only with criminal offences and not with molestation orders and so on. If one changes from one system to another, one must carry over the papers, the evidence and the information about the family from the civil court to the magistrates' court. Instead of dealing with a professional judge, who must give his reasons for his decision and who bases them upon the evidence that he hears, the magistrates, who may not be as well trained in domestic issues as the professional judge, will give a simple answer as to the solution. Paragraph 51 of the White Paper may give a clue. It is said that if the proposal is taken forward, it will free up the county courts. But that is simply administrative convenience and has nothing to do with victims.
	Perhaps the Government's thinking is that in the criminal courts one can take proceedings even if the victim is against that and does not want the family to be broken up. I do not know that the state should step in and say, "You have been knocked about; your family ought to be broken up". Some decision making has to be left with the victim of domestic violence. In its response to Part 3 Refuge states:
	"Although Refuge supports a vigorous prosecution policy, compelling women to give evidence should not be an unintended consequence of this action".
	It would not be right to drag an unwilling partner into the criminal court to give evidence. Other agencies have suggested that women may be unwilling to use the criminal process in any event to enforce a civil order.
	Perhaps the Government want to take such cases into the criminal courts to set out a scale of punishment. Five years is the sentence proposed for conviction on indictment. As the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, pointed out, at one time punishment for contempt of court was entirely at large. It was for the court to decide the fine or the length of imprisonment to be imposed, but about 10 years ago that was pulled back to a maximum of two years. However, this Bill could usefully give powers to the civil court to extend the period of sentencing and, more particularly, to order community sentences that might include parent relationship-building skills, lectures or talks or whatever in that field, to which I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, referred.
	Is the Government's purpose to make arrest easier? Where there is any suspicion of violence in any case, the county court judge adds a power of arrest to the order. That did not happen in the past. In the old days the non-molestation order or its equivalent had one strike; there was no power of arrest the first time, but when the order was breached the power of arrest was added. But that has gone. I have the figures from the Judicial Statistics annual report of 2002 and in that year 19,208 non-molestation orders were granted by the county court with a power of arrest and in only 2,855 instances was no power of arrest attached.
	There have been calls from all sides that a power of arrest should automatically be attached to a non-molestation order, which would solve the problem. If that happens I see no reason why we should introduce the concept of making common assault an arrestable offence. The power in the Bill to make common assault an arrestable offence is not limited to domestic violence, but covers the whole shooting match—65 per cent of the criminal cases that are reported to the police, common assault or violence. If it were made an arrestable offence that would apply to all those cases.
	In 2002, 8,722 occupation orders were made in the county courts with a power of arrest and only 1,588 were made without that power. An occupation order is an order by which one partner can prevent the other partner coming into the house. Conditions can be laid down as to who is to occupy the house, what contact there is to be with the children and so on.
	Curiously enough, breach of an occupation order will not, under the Bill, become a criminal offence, so it will still be treated as a contempt of court. I believe that the Government should answer why they have a cross-over from civil to criminal proceedings for non-molestation orders but not for occupation orders. No doubt we shall hear about that from the noble Baroness, if not today certainly in Committee.
	If the powers of arrest are confusing to police officers, as the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, suggested, that is a matter of education. If it is confusing at the moment, what will it be like when a police officer does not know whether he is dealing with a civil or a criminal matter? I cannot see that that is going to make it simpler for the police to operate.
	I turn to the new offence of causing or allowing the death of a child. I declare an interest: in one particular case that has been referred to in all the press releases from the Home Office in relation to this matter I happened to defend the husband. As both the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, have pointed out, Clause 4(1)(d) requires to be examined very closely because a partner living in the same household is liable to be convicted of such an offence if he or she fails to take reasonable steps to protect the vulnerable victim. What is meant by "reasonable"? If a battered partner, the kind of client to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, referred, or a mentally unstable partner is involved, is he or she to be found guilty of this new offence because he or she does not match up to the standards of the reasonable person? We are back to the problem of provocation about which I shall wait eagerly to hear from the Law Commission.
	The fundamental problem about provocation has always been comparing the action of a particular defendant with that of the objective, reasonable person. Does the word "reasonable" in Clause 4(1)(d) mean that one must ask whether a particular person has acted reasonably or are we to carry out the difficult comparisons that have plagued the courts in relation to provocation, with which I have—some of you may have forgotten—wearied your Lordships in relation to other Bills?
	Clause 5(1) is very odd. It suggests that a defendant could be found guilty, not just of this new offence, but of murder or manslaughter although the evidence, apart from his or her failure to give evidence, would not sustain the case. That means that there is no case to answer, but because the defendant does not give evidence, there is a case to answer. A jury could think that a defendant did not give evidence, so that can be taken into account in looking at what otherwise would not amount to a case. That is totally contrary to Article 6 of the European convention.
	The Explanatory Notes point out that it is subject to the safeguard in Section 38(3) of the 1994 Act which explicitly states that a defendant may not be convicted solely or mainly on the basis of an inference drawn from silence. We now have a provision that conflicts with Section 38(3) of the 1994 Act. Unless Clause 5(1) is made explicitly subject to this limitation, it is unenforceable or at least it is certain to go to Strasbourg. It is not in accordance with the views of the Law Commission on this topic.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, have pointed out, the provision that leaves the determination of a case to answer until the close of the defence case on a charge under this clause is all right, but I am dubious that it should extend to all cases with a domestic element of murder or manslaughter. How would leaving the question of a case to answer in a domestic case of murder or manslaughter until the end of the defence case work? What is meant by a domestic element to murder or manslaughter? How would one define it or distinguish it? The problems of Clause 5 at the moment are insuperable. From these Benches we shall do our best to overcome those difficulties.
	I do not wish to weary your Lordships any further at this time. I am sure that I shall do so a great deal more in Committee. We give a general welcome to the aims of the Bill, but clearly there are matters within it that require much further consideration and examination.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, this has been a most interesting and informative debate. I thank all noble Lords who have made contributions. It is a reflection of the experience which this House commands that we have had expert contributions from the Bar, the police and social workers, to name only three.
	I echo the words of my noble friend Lady Anelay: there is much that we can welcome in the Bill. New legislation on domestic violence has been a long time coming. We have heard from all sides of the House moving, and in some cases personal, accounts of the pain and suffering, both physical and emotional, that is caused by domestic violence. The victims have to deal not only with physical threats—although 62 per cent of domestic violence incidents were reported to have ended in injury, with 18 per cent requiring medical attention—but also with the emotional harm such incidents can cause and which can have such long-term effects. Such emotional harm can extend to any children who may be involved. It can have a great effect on their future relationships and can affect a whole new generation.
	The Bill contains some very sensible provisions on important topics, such as violence in the home, familial homicide and creating better support for victims. However, predictably, there is much that we will wish to probe, analyse and in some cases change. I look forward to the Committee stage when we can discuss our concerns in detail.
	My noble friend Lady Anelay has given notice of our particular concerns on the practicability of Clauses 4 and 5. We are privileged to have had the benefit of the practical court experience recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, in respect of Clause 4. But we shall certainly return to the subject in some detail in Committee.
	Domestic violence has been a terrible problem for many years. It is hard to determine how much actually goes on as so much of it is unreported. However, according to the British Crime Survey of 2001–02, there were between 518,000 and 752,000 incidents of domestic violence in 2001, which means that the problem affects a large number of families. Interestingly, the Family Law Bar Association points out that,
	"violence in the home should be considered to be a more serious matter than violence, of an identical level in terms of force or injury, outside the home".
	As we heard, the Bill will increase the powers of the police to deal with domestic violence. Both the Bar and the police find domestic violence a most distressing and frustrating offence. I am sure that they will welcome the increased powers given under Clause 7. My noble friend Lady Seccombe has drawn attention to the need for the police to be trained in the additional powers of arrest granted by that clause. However, I was reassured by the confidence expressed in this respect by the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, with his police background.
	I turn towards the later stages of the Bill and Part 3. We on these Benches recognise the need for a more focused approach to the victims of crime in this country. The Audit Commission's report on victims, which was published earlier this month, stated that last year around one-quarter of the population of England and Wales were victims of crime. That is a staggering number of people who can now be classed as "victims".
	The summary in the Home Office publication, A New Deal for Victims and Witnesses: National Strategy, published in July this year, advanced four points. They are:
	"very few victims see 'their' offender brought to justice; victim satisfaction with the police has gone down from 68 per cent in 1994 to 59 per cent in 2002–03; fewer than a third of all victims feel they have been kept well informed by the police; and in many parts of the country, people will not report a crime—either as victim or witness—because of fear of reprisals, or because of disengagement from the system.
	The Audit Commission has called for national targets to be set across the sectors for the care of crime victims and witnesses after research showed that only one in 10 crimes results in conviction and two out of five witnesses said that they would not want to repeat the process of reporting crime.
	Those statistics show that many victims will be unhappy with the criminal justice system and need strong support from the criminal justice agencies. We need to ensure that the provisions in the Bill actually address the needs of victims rather than just being another layer of bureaucracy, to which they will be subject.
	I say a brief word about the code of practice. Your Lordships will be aware that there is a great temptation to use codes of practice in legislation as a "cop out" to avoid having to address difficult issues on the face of the Bill; I detect some scepticism from my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway in that respect. I very much hope that that is not the case. I welcome the details of the proposed working of the code of practice in Clauses 13 and 14. That of course is set out in considerable detail in the code of practice itself, which I must say only came into my hands this morning.
	Nevertheless, in Committee we shall be subjecting these provisions to close scrutiny. We will ask how the new commissioner will operate; how he will interact with the other commissioners; and what real powers he will have to make changes. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made an important point about relations between the commissioner for victims and violence and the proposed children's commissioner. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, spoke of some practical considerations that need to be addressed in setting up the post of commissioner.
	The Bill, effective though I hope it will be, must not deflect all those concerned—government and agencies—addressing the basic causes for domestic violence which caused the Bill to be needed in the first place, a point made in an impressive contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, who quoted previous speakers on the subject.
	We support the idea that attitudes towards victims need to change in order to make a real difference. Victims need more consultation and feedback at every stage along the criminal justice process. Many noble Lords have spoken on that point. The noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, with some frankness, acknowledged the part the police need to play. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, also particularly made that point.
	We must address the culture to which both the Minister and my noble friend Lady Anelay referred—the culture of acceptance; a culture called into question so movingly by the account given by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans.
	In conclusion, there is so much to be welcomed in the Bill, but with all the proposed additional support for victims, we must not raise their hopes only for the Bill to prove disappointing and ineffective in its working. That is the challenge posed for this House in the first stage of the Bill's passage through Parliament. However, the Minister can be assured that we on this side will do all we can in Grand Committee and in later stages to ensure that the Bill leaves this House as an effective instrument to address this serious and tragic problem.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I take the opportunity to thank the noble Viscount for his support and indeed every noble Lord who has participated in the debate. I am basking in the warmth of approval that has been showered upon the Bill from every part of the House, not least from these Benches and those who have spoken behind me. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I particularly thank my noble and old friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, for the fact that on this occasion she joins me with full voice. We have always walked together; I am glad we are back in step.
	Nothing that I say detracts from the passion with which several noble Lords have spoken about the iniquitous nature of the offence. I join my noble friend Lady Gibson, the noble Baronesses, Lady Linklater and Lady Walmsley, and others who made it absolutely clear that domestic violence is no respecter of race, class, religion, ethnicity, region, occupation or anything else. It is a breach of trust, as was so clearly said by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It disables those who are put under its spell. Most iniquitous of all, as several noble Lords—not least, latterly, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford—said, it produces more in its image. Those children who are either abused or watch their parents abuse can go on to abuse themselves. The pernicious nature of that ill has been rightly recognised by all noble Lords who have spoken about it.
	I also tell the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans that the Government recognise that it will take the efforts of all good men and women if we are to succeed in overcoming the adverse effects of that terrible behaviour. We need the spiritual and the non-spiritual; those of faith and those of none. We welcome the engagement of the faith communities and all others who will willingly take up arms with us against that terrible ill.
	I mentioned the cyclical effect of the offence, but I must also make clear that, as I said in opening the debate, we want the blanket of comfort and succour that we provide not to be limited to the Bill but spread much more broadly. Many noble Lords will know that we have an inter-ministerial committee on domestic violence, which I am privileged to chair, and which involves the Department of Health, the Department for Education and Skills, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Solicitor-General—who has been rightly praised for her great efforts on the issue of domestic violence—the Home Office, which I represent, the Welsh Assembly, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Trade and Industry. All of us are working together to try to thicken and strengthen the net to ensure that we catch those who need our support.
	I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her collaborative approach and the warmth of her support and reassure her that we expect careful scrutiny of the provisions because we want to get them right. We think that they are right now, but things can always be improved and we are open to any such justifiable improvement. We believe that the provisions for familial homicide are ECHR-compatible and will of course explore the reasons why we say that in greater detail in Committee.
	I turn directly to some of the issues raised later in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, in supporting the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, went on to comment on how we will deal with the criminalisation of the breach of non-molestation. I should make plain that the Bill retains the civil enforcement route for non-molestation orders. So victims who do not want to go to the police will still be able to use the civil route. The Bill also retains undertakings for parties who do not want to pursue cases through civil orders.
	I hope to give considerable pleasure to my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws by saying that we believe that proceedings for breach of a non-molestation order, if held in a criminal court, will be to the criminal standard of proof. My noble friend was right to make plain that many cases, at the end of the trial—the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, mentioned that there could be a bind-over—give rise to justifiable evidence from which, if it had been produced before a civil court, an injunction could flow in accordance with civil standards. Indeed, sometimes such cases are also proved beyond reasonable doubt. The noble Lord will know that the more serious the allegation, even if the civil standard applies, the weightier the proof needed to satisfy the court. So sometimes the difference between the civil and criminal standard can be very small.
	We seek to consider matters from the victim's point of view and ensure that the victim gets as much support as the victim is entitled to receive without putting the victim through the whole process of going to another court on another day at another time. Noble Lords will know that there is sometimes a hiatus between the end of the case and the time when the victim can go to another place to get a civil order. Regrettably, sometimes, during that period further offences are committed.
	I shall say a word about breach. The reason why it is so important for common assault to be arrestable is that often, as the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn, made clear, when the police attend an incident, a common assault is witnessed, which is not arrestable. So the wife or woman involved—regrettably, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy made clear, it is usually a woman—cannot get immediate relief and respite, which is what we seek.
	To answer the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, about making a power of arrest attached to each injunction, the reason we have phrased the provision as we have is further to assist the police. Again, we will have a register of civil orders, so that when the police go to an address they will know that there is an injunction relating to that family. If a common assault is being committed in breach of an injunction, the police will be able to act. So the clarity for which officers have been asking for a long time will exist.
	It is right for us to remember the wise words of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, when she said that this is an equal opportunities issue as well as an issue of power. Many women feel under the power of their husbands and at the very instance at which they need greater succour, they may say to the police officer, "No, no, no; I wish nothing to be done", but the officer may have been present when the breach was committed and be able to arrest none the less.
	I take on board what the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said about the nature of relationships and that people may change their minds, but we must be absolutely clear that fights take place in the home that would never be tolerated if they were committed between two strangers on the street. That is a public issue.
	Regrettably, we know that men who abuse can escalate that abuse as they move, like a butterfly, from one women to another. It is a tragedy that sometimes when a man kills his latest partner, we subsequently hear that there was a long line of women who were ritually abused by him before he finally killed. So it is not simply a personal choice for an individual woman: it may have many consequences for the women who may replace her in that man's affections. So that must be dealt with.
	I turn to the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross. I know that we have emphasised the issue of domestic violence between partners, but I reassure her that elder abuse is much in our minds as a significant issue because of individuals' vulnerability. Her comment on the nature of the relationship, which was reinforced by the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley—that it was a wonder that many more carers did not behave and respond aggressively—has been taken on board. The noble Baroness will know that the Family Law Act 1996 already covers sisters and people living together but not cohabiting. Under the Act they are already recognised as associated persons and are therefore eligible for non-molestation orders. Relatives are also covered. That is a broad definition that could offer protection to many elderly people.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Walliswood, supported the provisions, for which I warmly thank her, and raised issues about the definition of domestic violence, asking why it had been left as it was. The Government recognise the difficulties caused by the different definitions used by the Home Office and other key agencies. We are working with partners towards a single definition. We will ensure that the definition is as broad as possible and that it takes on board the responses that we have received on the consultation paper, including those from a wide range of minority communities. However, a statutory definition of domestic violence is not needed for the purposes of the Bill, and it would be difficult for any statutory definition to reflect the breadth of domestic violence and to keep it up to date, as it will change. If we look back at what we classified as domestic violence even 10 years ago, we know that we have advanced. We need that breadth to ensure that all are covered.
	The noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas of Walliswood and Lady Seccombe, were right to say that training for domestic violence agencies would be important. We recognise that. Training for all agencies involved with victims of domestic violence, including the police, is of great importance. The Government will review all the domestic violence training available across the agenda and the professional bodies with a view to ensuring a more consistent, multi-agency approach.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and others teased me gently about the report on provocation. We expect the final report in late spring and wish to take what it says very seriously. There has been an open debate—the proper type of debate that we should have—on the definition of provocation. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, is absolutely right to say that the defence of provocation is used not only by men but by women who have been ritually battered by their partners. We want whatever we come up with to be an improvement on our current position, not a regressive act. We shall therefore look carefully at the recommendations, considering all the different permutations and the other defences to reduce murder to manslaughter. The Law Commission may suggest a hybrid. Some noble Lords asked whether self-defence should be changed. We shall look at all those matters. We wish simply to be as open as possible and to craft something that better meets the needs that we have identified. We make no commitment on change because we simply do not know.
	The noble Baronesses, Lady Thomas and Lady Walmsley, and, I believe, my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis discussed the link between the Children's Commissioner and the Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses. We understand and agree that the two roles must be dealt with very carefully, and that the commissioners will have to work together across government to ensure that both effectively meet the needs of children affected by crime, either directly or through witnessing it at home.
	I commend the comments made by my noble friend Lady Gibson of Market Rasen. In her very thoughtful presentation she outlined how we have developed since the 1960s. I pay tribute to the work done by individuals such as the noble Baroness, and in the unions, to make clear that employers can, and should, take the issue very seriously—fortunately, many employers do. We welcome the fact that my noble friend raised the issue, as the Government are very keen that the opportunities presented by the workplace to prevent domestic violence should be pursued. We shall introduce throughout the Civil Service guidance for all government departments.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, mentioned the right of reasonable chastisement. The Government have consulted on where the line has been drawn on that. The noble Baroness should know that that has been an ongoing consideration. We do not propose to change that line at present, but I can reassure her that we will take on board her comments on how children are treated and the need to set them proper examples of good behaviour.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis raised the issue of funding. Many have said that the proposals are all well and good but asked about the money. The Government are making a major investment in domestic violence this year. We are investing £84 million, including £19 million from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Housing Corporation, towards refuge provision. The Home Secretary also announced in February a further £14 million over the next three years. This year we have provided £30 million to Victim Support to deliver services to victims and witnesses. That helps to support almost 1.5 million victims of crime and more than 300,000 witnesses of crime each year. The Government's annual grant to Victim Support has more than doubled in recent years, from £11.7 million in 1996–97 to £30 million in 2003–04.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, raised the issue of devolution of funding for witness services. It is not just about taking away money from the centre in terms of victim support, but about taking money away from the Home Office and putting it into the hands of local criminal justice boards, which will be in a much better position than we are to know what is needed locally and to ensure that it is delivered. We will pilot the devolution of witness services funding in four areas next year: Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Essex and Surrey. Subject to the success of those pilots, we shall roll out nationally in 2005–06. Devolution of funding for victim support services will probably be allowed to happen from 2006–07, but no decision has been taken on the date. We will review how that progresses.
	I have already commented on and, I hope, commended the contribution by the noble Earl, Lord Rosslyn. He asked how we would deal with the civil orders register. The police will have on the register information about names and addresses, but we are most keen to ensure that they can monitor serious, violent offenders. The civil orders go through the civil courts and are not always directly linked to a crime. The register of civil orders will improve the protection of domestic violence cases that go through the civil courts. Around 14,000 non-molestation orders are made each year. The more dangerous offenders are already registered on the violent and sex offenders register (VISOR) when they have been convicted of specific violent and sex offences and given a sentence of 12 months or more. That covers the majority of domestic violence offenders, who will be convicted of offences such as actual bodily harm and wounding with intent. VISOR gives the police a way of risk-assessing.
	The local initiatives in various areas are working very well. Fulham and Hammersmith, for instance, runs the project Standing Together, as part of which information is being collated. We are seeking to address the issue of data protection, because we are working together to get one hymn sheet from which all departments can sing in harmony, it is to be hoped, without finding any discord. We hope thereby to strengthen the net.
	I hope that I have answered the main thrust of noble Lords' comments. I look forward very much to working together in Committee, as I am sure that we will be able to fashion something that is not only fit for purpose but will better protect the individuals whom we seek to serve.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.

Consolidated Fund Bill

Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate of the Speaker that the Bill is a money Bill, and read a first time.

European Union and the United States (EUC Report)

Lord Jopling: rose to move, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on A Fractured Partnership? Relations Between the European Union and the United States of America (30th Report, Session 2002–03, HL Paper 134).

Lord Jopling: My Lords, I would like to add a personal note before I begin. Having been a member of Sub-Committee C since it was first instituted and its Chairman for the past three years, and having now been rotated off that committee, I would like to tell all noble Lords who sat with me on that Committee over the years how grateful I am for all their support and all the interest that we shared. My noble friend Lord Bowness, who is here, is taking over that committee. I wish him all the best of good fortune for the future.
	Turning to the report, the committee was grateful to Sir Michael Quinlan for all the wisdom and experience that he showered on the committee. It served to give this report a great deal more authority than it would have had without his help. Finally, I thank Audrey Nelson, our Clerk, who came to the House only a year ago. I have never seen a clerk take to the water like a duck as she has. She has been outstanding.
	With regard to the report, I am sure that I speak for the whole committee when I say that we are extremely grateful for the kind comments it has received. I am thinking of the Government's response, which has been published, and particularly of the kind words quoted by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon in last week's debate.
	I can do no better than begin by repeating the words that start our report:
	"The European Union's relations with the United States are at their lowest ebb for at least a generation".
	I was interested to see last week in the publication European Voice that those sentiments were exactly echoed by the former United States ambassador to the European Union, Stuart Eizenstat. It is a tragedy that, so soon after the events of 9/11, given the rising threat of terrorism in the world and the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, EU/US relations are in such a poor state today when they should never have been stronger. We asked ourselves at the beginning why relations had become so fractured, and I believe that there are six main reasons, although there are others.
	First, we must recognise that there has always been friction between the United States and the European Economic Community, as it was, and the European Union, as it is now. We remember the French opt-out of the central command structure of NATO, although that was not an EU matter, and the various trade disputes that have arisen over the years—I remember ones about bananas, beef hormones, with which I was personally involved, and steel. Within the past few days, steel has, like so many of the others, been resolved or circumvented, with a certain amount of tension while the difficulty continued. There has been residual irritation in some cases, but such issues never created a situation anything like the present rift that exists between the EU and the US.
	The second reason is the irritation in the EU at the United States' policy over the years towards Israel. There is a feeling that, if the United States had not pursued such a blatantly biased policy in favour of Israel, the Israel/Palestine problem might have been more easily settled. That problem has been the virus at the centre of the tension in the Middle East and one of the reasons for the rise in terrorism and Muslim fundamentalism.
	The third reason is the attitude of the present administration in Washington, which has caused dismay in Europe. In recent years, the United States seems to have moved away from the multilateral approach to world problems that served us pretty well in the past in favour of going it alone on a unilateral basis. I think I speak for most of the committee when I say that I was shocked when we went to Washington last February and heard the expression used which appears in our report,
	"if you agree with us, fine—if you don't then get out of our way".
	That is the new attitude in Washington and some of us were very shocked by it.
	The fourth reason for the tension leads from the last one. There is despair in Europe at the attitude of those who currently run the Pentagon.
	The fifth reason for the rift is again a recent one—the dismay that the events in Iraq this year seem to have been ill thought-out and prepared, as many of us warned before the conflict began. We warned that the post-war phase would be infinitely more difficult than the war itself. One can only hope that the capture of Saddam yesterday will help to reduce the obstructions to returning Iraq to normality.
	The sixth and final reason for the rift is the belief held by many that action in Iraq should have been delayed, and not preceded by dodgy spin until there was a surge of support for action by the worldwide community. If that had happened, the climate in the Middle East and the wider Islamic world of burgeoning loathing for the West and the United States in particular could well have been very much reduced.
	That is part of the background to our report. We believed very strongly—unanimously, I think—that both the European Union and the United States would be the losers if things remained as they were. Things are only made worse by some of the tit-for-tat that seems to be going on. As an example, there is the absurdity, in the mind of many, of the new French-German-Belgian-Luxembourgeois proposal for an independent command structure for the ESDP. Again, there is the mean decision of the United States to bar countries that opposed the war in Iraq from bidding for the re-building contracts that will be available in the future.

Lord Gilbert: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain to us why the American taxpayer should be expected to fund contracts to the benefit of French and German companies, when those countries made no contribution to ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein's regime? Would he be prepared to recommend to his former constituents that they should fund a system whereby foreign countries who did not participate in those actions should be the beneficiaries of taxpayers' dollars?

Lord Jopling: My Lords, it will not be only American money that will be spent in re-building facilities in Iraq. I quote to the noble Lord an extract from the Financial Times that appeared only last week:
	"Most of all, the contracts edict shows yet again the Pentagon's preference for sticking to its own alarmingly overoptimistic postwar scenarios".
	I was interested to see a quotation from BBC News from last week. Professor Steven Schooner of George Washington University said:
	"This kind of decision just begs for retaliation and a tit-for-tat response".
	That is my point. The time has come, as I said, for both sides to stop that sort of thing.
	The committee felt that, whereas the United States was used to the European Union as a trading alliance, it had not begun properly to accept it in its infant role as a world player in foreign affairs and defence. The committee felt that that was not necessarily only the fault of the United States. The European Union has a good deal of work to do to improve its public relations and its presence in Washington. We met the diplomatic representatives of the European Union when we were in Washington. That led us to the view that there were major improvements to be made. The appointment of a European Union Foreign Minister holding the immense powers likely to be attached to that post could be a positive help in establishing the European Union as a major player in foreign affairs and defence.
	What else should the US and the EU do to restore the generally good relations and partnerships of former years? The EU should do more to shoulder the burden in Iraq. Already, the sum of 200 million euros, which was agreed in Madrid in October, is going in that direction. I am sure that there is more to be done. Both sides should put more weight behind the efforts of the quartet to settle the Israel/Palestine situation. The committee has always favoured the building up of ESDP, but more should be done to make it clear that the role of ESDP is in support of and complementary to NATO.
	There are already some hopeful signs that the rift is becoming less apparent. There are the recent German-French-UK-US agreement on how to confront Iran's nuclear aspirations and recent documents such as the Thessalonika document and Mr Solana's security strategy. Yesterday, at the conclusion of the Council, the following words, which are to be heartily commended, were used in the declaration on transatlantic relations:
	"The transatlantic relationship is irreplaceable. The EU remains fully committed to a constructive, balanced and forward-looking partnership with our transatlantic partners".
	Those are the ways in which we should move. Both sides must look to the future, not to the past.
	The predictable guerrilla war that has gone on in Iraq for several months seems to have had a sobering effect on the United States. Recently, one can detect more understanding on the other side of the Atlantic of, for instance, the build-up of ESDP. There is more understanding in the United States of the need for a multilateral effort to re-build Iraq.
	There has been too much trading of insults. There is too much to lose, if those insults are not forgotten and the rifts healed. I was particularly taken by a phrase used in the weekend declaration of the European Council:
	"Acting together, the EU and its transatlantic partners can be a formidable force for good in the world".
	I spent a great deal of my life trying to further good relations between the United States and Britain, in particular, but also between the United States and the European Union. I ran the British-American Parliamentary Group for 14 years, and I regarded it as a labour of love. I could not endorse the words of the declaration more. The two sides must come together. We must never turn away from the force for good that that alliance can create.
	Moved, That this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on A Fractured Partnership? Relations Between the European Union and the United States of America (30th Report, Session 2002–03, HL Paper 134).—(Lord Jopling.)

Lord Harrison: My Lords, like some other noble Lords tonight, I rise to give my swansong on Sub-Committee C of the European Union Committee, concerned with the common foreign and security policy. In doing so, I thank the committee's ring of Lords, who have made the past four years of discovery and debate so interesting and congenial. Above all, there is the Lord of the ring, the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, who has presided over us with Gandalfian wisdom and good humour.
	Last week, I went to the Imperial War Museum. I found the room in the museum which displays exhibits from the conflicts in which British troops were deployed since 1945. Standing in the entrance was an enlargement of the celebrated Herald newspaper cartoon depicting an American soldier offering the reader a wreath, on which is displayed the legend, "Victory and Peace in Europe". The soldier's accompanying heartfelt words read:
	"Here you are—don't lose it again".
	Today's debate on our report, A Fractured Partnership? Relations Between the European Union and the United States of America, gives us the opportunity to assess whether we have done enough to heed the lively warning contained in that memorable cartoon.
	In the interim years, NATO has been established, the European Union created and the USA has become the world's supreme economic and military power. But the fall of the Berlin Wall more than a decade ago has brought new challenges that have shifted yet again the dynamics of all three countries and institutions.
	Several issues arise from our report, which are crucial in influencing the future of our common development. They give the USA and the EU the chance to strengthen our common bond through change within NATO. But not all those issues are treated with the sense and sensibility that they warrant in the world outside. Perhaps I may take the vexed question of the so-called European army and its latest incarnation; that is, the proposal in the current IGC that the EU should develop a separate planning function, complementary to NATO, to undertake security operations to which the USA is neutral or perhaps even hostile.
	Throughout our evidence taking, it was impressed on us that in order to fulfil our obligations to NATO, Europe had markedly to increase its defence spending, expressed as a percentage of national budgets. The committee agreed. However, at the same time, we were frequently apostrophied on the need to preserve the inviolability of NATO procedures. We were conjured that anything that fell outside NATO's usual procedures was deemed to be anathema and a threat to the Atlantic alliance. But is that credible politics? If Europe increases its defence spending—as it should and must—in comparison to the USA, which will always remain the major donor to our common defence, is it feasible that the EU will continue to accept the USA's veto on Europe's freedom to make its own decisions in the security field? I have in mind not only those instances where the USA, unsurprisingly, believes that it has little or no locus, but also those occasions where the USA is neutral or even hostile to NATO intervention.
	However few those occasions are likely to be in future, is it politically acceptable that British or European politicians might stand before their electorate to say that they were not only forbidden by the USA from acting independently, but also failed to develop and prepare any separate planning function. That would be the politics of Ethelred the Unready, noted neither for his military preparedness nor his political wisdom.
	Moreover, the saliency of the IGC proposals has been blown out of all proportion by excitable press and political backwoodsmen. Any separate EU planning function will entail some 30 to 40 staff, and not the 1,000 plus personnel who currently plan for NATO. It would be hardly a major break from NATO, but more a sensible addition to current competences. The lesson is that in the Morganatic marriage that joins the USA and the EU, the former brings by far the greater dowry of weapons and warriors. When the other spouse here—the EU—begins to pay its way, a more equal relationship will inevitably ensue, a development that should be celebrated, not decried, on both sides of the Atlantic.
	That brings me to my second and allied point. Those who oppose this natural rebalancing of power and forces within the alliance all too often invoke the spectre of duplication and confusion. "Too many cooks will spoil the broth of command and control", they cry. But the self-same apologists cry foul if any commentator suggests that the current armed forces and military structures of the member states of the EU—more properly referred to as the European members of NATO—are themselves riddled with duplication. The memorable example given by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, about the difficulty of drawing together an effective and efficient rapid reaction force from Europe's current standing army of some 2 million servicemen and women is a case in point.
	Whenever it is suggested that even the mildest steps might be taken to minimise the duplication of armed resources associated with the lack of specialisation of tasks, with the imperfect systems of common procurement, or with the haphazard stabs at shared training among Europeans, hands are thrown up in horror at this threat to each member nation's inalienable right to waste money on behalf of its taxpayers. And all that is to satisfy the illusion that member states preserve their 19th century sovereignty intact.
	I have not begun to enter into the lists of the need to refocus our defence efforts on to the needs of tomorrow and not the outworn targets of yesterday, which, as last week's defence White Paper astutely observes, may require the substituting of the soldier by the satellite to meet the challenges of tomorrow's threat to national and international stability and security. Of course, there is a hidden agenda practised by those who deplore duplication in NATO but accept it in the EU. Their true vice is their ingrained antipathy to a uniting Europe; they fear what they perceive as the disintegration of the nation state.
	That view is ably exemplified by the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, who recently asked in his column in The Times whether it was now time for Britain to choose between its allegiance to the United States and its membership of the European Union. He answers his own query by saying that Britain should forsake the latter for the former. Such a view is a patent folly, not least because it would undermine NATO. Britain should, of course, anchor itself in the European Union—its geographical home—and strengthen its ties with the United States, the Commonwealth and all other willing partners, which is a policy boldly developed by Prime Minister Blair and the present Government.
	But the confrontational views of the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, find curious echo not only in the anti-Americanism which thrives in certain political circles in Europe, but also in the thinking of the neo-conservatives in Washington who wish to use the IGC's modest proposals for an EU planning function as a pretext for the United States to withdraw from its NATO responsibilities. Those of us who seek measured change in the relationship between the USA and the EU compatible with changing priorities should resist these siren voices and their sinuous simplicities. The partnership would indeed be fractured if we were to follow the American isolationists whose beliefs were reported in Irwin Stelzer's recent column in The Times, as those deeming NATO to be "irrelevant".
	A Fractured Relationship is the provocative title of tonight's report and is one born of the recent conflict in Iraq and its effect on European unity. Yesterday's dramatic revelation of Saddam Hussein's welcome capture will bear further consideration elsewhere. Meanwhile, in the new year, a real opportunity is offered us here in Europe and across the Atlantic to repair the fractured relationship.
	In conclusion, I want to draw one parallel with the path upon which NATO has now embarked as it shuffles off the coil of being a defence organisation wholly concerned with the mutual defence of its members and its reincarnation as an entity providing defence and security at home by pre-emptive action out of area. Invoking wider global security concerns, Prime Minister Blair has rightly highlighted the redundancy of the belief that, in the future, the defence and security of the global village can remain the separate responsibility of the parish councils of nation states.
	Technology and communication have caught us out. In the future, we will all hang separately if we do not hang together in the new and developing coalitions of the willing, of which NATO and the EU are supreme and complementary examples. This Barkis principle, promoting, like Dickens's Barkis, the marriage of the willing, must inform our future thinking and action. The willing and able must support, as we do on both sides of the Atlantic, active democracies, dynamic markets, respect for human rights and the rule of law as the lodestones of a fairer, freer and far-sighted world. If our report helps to clarify that change and those challenges, then our retiring Sub-committee C will, I hope and believe, have done some small good.

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: My Lords, no one could reasonably argue that this debate is not topical, or that it does not address the single most significant aspect of any effort by Europe to develop a common foreign and security policy and its evolving relationship with the United States. It does both of those things. In doing them, the report before the House strikes, in my view, the right note: deep concern that all is not well with that crucial relationship, combined with a commitment to working to improve it. The House surely owes a debt of gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, for his long service in this cause. I remember well when he ran the British-American Parliamentary Group and how much he contributed to it before he came to this place. I thank also his colleagues for having sounded an alarm bell after their visit to Washington.
	My only regret is that, as is so often the case, we have taken more than six months to find time to debate such an important matter. In this House and during this new Session, we really must cut down that gap if we are not to lose our relevance.
	The relationship between the European Union and the United States is fundamentally asymmetrical and atypical, and that is what makes it so difficult to analyse and to shape. It is asymmetrical in a number of different ways. First, it is so because of the unevenness of the weight of the two parties in different fields of external policy. To take the two extremes of the spectrum, in trade policy, as we saw recently over the lifting of US trade barriers on steel and as we can see whenever the main players in global trade policy sit at the negotiating table in multilateral negotiations, the US and the EU are equals. Agreement between them is a necessary if not a sufficient condition for any progress. At the other end of the spectrum—military power—there is no equivalence at all, and the gap is widening.
	Between those two extremes, the situation is less clear-cut, with Europe's "soft" power assets in aid and nation-building often matching or exceeding that of the US. But the relationship is also asymmetrical because it is not one between two nation states, but between, on the one hand, one nation state and, on the other, a collectivity of states which approve a number of their functions, but each one of which has its own longstanding relationship with the US. In a way, every European country has a special relationship with the United States and so does the European Union as a whole.
	Just to make it a little more complicated, all these aspects of the overall relationship are constantly moving and changing. So it is no good simply trying to draw up a blueprint and hoping that it will apply for all time and for all circumstances. There has to be flexibility and adaptability at both ends.
	If we look first at the European end of the equation, it becomes clear that there is a massive difference in the influence we can hope to have over US policy making if we speak with one voice or if we are divided. Recent examples where we have influenced that policy making are on steel tariffs, on Europe's defence identity and on the handling of Iran. An example of the opposite situation has been where we have, both collectively and separately, had little influence on Iraq. And there are plenty of others.
	But that does not mean to say that we should strive for unity at any price. The policy options we support have to make sense in terms of protecting and furthering our own European interests. In more cases than not it will be a case of pursuing a dialogue with Washington designed to maximise, in partnership, our ability to secure shared objectives and to promote shared values. That has already been the case in the Balkans and in Afghanistan, and it needs to be the case in post-war Iraq and in the Middle East peace process.
	But unity certainly does not make sense if it is designed, systematically and deliberately, to promote policies in opposition to or at variance with those of the United States. That is the defect of the image of multi-polarity. That approach in any case will not correspond with Europe's interests, which so often coincide and are not in contradiction with those of the United States. It will not rally anything like a consensus in Europe, so it fails the basic test for an effective European policy.
	The other end of the equation in the United States is less certain than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Successive US administrations from Truman to Clinton favoured and supported European unity even when there were short term costs—for example, in the field of trade policy. That policy outlived the end of the Cold War as it became clear that the new world disorder of the 1990s required effective co-operation across a wide range of issues between the two sides of the Atlantic.
	Now, however, it is challenged by influential voices both outside and within the present Administration. Splitting Europe with slogans such as new and old Europe and measures such as the sheep and goats approach to the grant of contracts in Iraqi construction are pursued with a reckless disregard for the long-term consequences. If I was to answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, I would say, "Why should the American taxpayer pay for a wider range of countries to subscribe to these projects? First, because he will get value; and, secondly"—

Lord Gilbert: My Lords, who would get better value?

Lord Hannay of Chiswick: The American taxpayer, my Lords, because we have untied our aid. Why have we untied our aid? Because we get better value from it that way. And, secondly, because playing these kinds of games does not pay in the long term. Splitting Europe will not work.
	The fabric of multilateral co-operation is challenged and the Europeans have made clear that it is essential for their involvement. That view is often treated with disdain in the United States.
	This might not matter so much if the world was a more stable and secure place or if the United States really was a benign hegemon able on its own to ensure that nothing went seriously wrong, a little like the Roman Empire at the height of its power. But neither of these propositions stands up to careful scrutiny. The new threats which have taken the place of the Cold War—from terrorism, from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and from the failure of states—are as real as the old ones, and more complex and more difficult to counter. Combined with still festering old disputes such as those in Palestine and Kashmir, aggravated by poverty, pandemic diseases and environmental degradation, this is a witch's brew which particularly menaces the open societies that emerged so successfully from the Cold War.
	It is not the United States acting alone that is either capable or willing to shield us as it did in the Cold War. Iraq and Afghanistan are already revealing how stretched US resources can be by two crises. Moreover, these new threats cannot be countered by military action alone. They need the widest possible global coalition, underpinned by a framework of international law, to give the effort the authority and the legitimacy it requires if it is to be successful.
	That will simply not be achieved if Europeans and Americans do not work together in close partnership. If we cannot achieve that partnership, the Americans will find themselves with a burden that they are unwilling in the end to support, as they did in Vietnam, and we Europeans will be faced with an increasingly unilateralist and isolationist United States which will reveal how ill-equipped we are to look after our interests on our own.
	Are we now beyond the point where we can hope to heal the fractures of this last year or so? In my view, certainly not. Damage has been done, but it is not irremediable. The institutions on which we depend—NATO and the UN—are capable of use if we can rediscover the habit of using them constructively and not as forums for discordant political debate.
	However, a Europe seeking to develop its own common and foreign security policy—as I believe it will necessarily do as its individual nations' capacity for independent action steadily reduces—needs to be more imaginative than that. We need, I believe, to reach out to the United States and ask them to build new organic links between us which will enable the whole process of crisis and threat management, from analysis and assessment through the discussion of policy options to action itself, to be handled discreetly and calmly, with differences aired unpolemically when a fully common approach cannot be achieved.
	The idea of specific EU/US machinery to handle foreign policy co-operation has been around at least since the 1970s. It is surely now time to move it from the realm of academic debate to actual practice.

Lord Bowness: My Lords, the report of the committee has been comprehensively presented by my noble friend Lord Jopling. However, having had the privilege of being asked to succeed him as chairman of the sub-committee, I would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to my noble friend, not only for his chairmanship and conduct of this inquiry and the presentation of this report but also for his tenure during his three years as chairman of the sub-committee. It is daunting to follow him, since he brought great skills, knowledge and expertise to the chairmanship, to say nothing of kindness to less well informed members—at least, one less well informed member—of the sub-committee. I am sure that all noble Lords who have served with him will want to thank him for his work, as well as thanking other noble Lords who left the committee at the end of the parliamentary Session.
	There is very little to add to the report in the light of the analysis of my noble friend. However, the situation is, I submit, evolving, and the committee's recommendations in this report may be affected by the result of the weekend's European Council meeting and what ultimately happens to some of the proposals in the draft constitution. It would, I suggest, be unwise to indulge in too much jubilation that agreement was not reached this weekend, although the timetable was probably unreasonable. However, the total failure of the whole project will mean that a number of important recommendations which are designed to improve EU/US relations need a new vehicle if they are to have a chance of succeeding.
	The committee's recommendations place much emphasis on what the EU and the nations of the Union should do. It places rather less emphasis on what the United States should do. However, a partnership is a two-way street, and there are obligations on the United States if they truly want the European Union as a partner and not a satellite.
	My noble friend Lord Jopling indicated that some people we met in Washington showed great reluctance to recognise the need for that partnership. Indeed, there was almost total disregard by some of any contrary opinions which might be expressed. As other noble Lords have said, I believe that crude attempts to divide Europe into old and new Europe are extremely unhelpful. It is quite extraordinary that some in the United Kingdom have taken up that theme.
	I also suggest that forcing states soon to be members of the European Union to make a choice—a false choice, I believe—between the European Union and the United States is not helpful. The United States is likely to be better served by Europe working together, especially on foreign policy and defence.
	I think, looking at the divide between old and new Europe, that nothing is quite that simple. Remarks were made about particular nations in the context of Iraq; yet some which opposed action in Iraq were deeply involved in the mission in Afghanistan.
	The health of the partnership between the European Union and the United States is vital for both sides. As has been said, both sides will need to work at it, and disagreement on particular issues should not be an excuse for patronising or ostracising those who disagree. Paragraph 34 of the committee's report made it clear that the European Union's foreign policy framework should avoid failure in any particular field—failure to achieve total agreement being portrayed as a common foreign and security policy failure or as a reason for not trying to agree.
	The health of the partnership will come from both sides having the ability—though not necessarily the equal ability—to contribute substantially, especially in the field of defence. The recommendation in paragraph 32, supported by the committee and endorsed by the Government, asks for the European Union to drive that forward. Of course, the details will be important; NATO will remain of paramount importance, and should remain so for the European Union and for the United States, which should not disregard it when that is convenient for them. Members of the European Union working together to improve capability, together with the necessary frameworks to work effectively, should be welcomed by the United States and not constantly portrayed as an attempt to subvert NATO.
	The report and its presentation by my noble friend Lord Jopling shows the position as we found it and, to some extent, as it still is today. It may not make for comfortable reading or listening, but unless we can offer to friends in the United States and partners in Europe a frank assessment of our concerns, the relationship will not prosper.

Lord Powell of Bayswater: My Lords, there is probably no issue more important for Europe than transatlantic relations, and our sub-committee was absolutely right to survey those relations and propose how the damage done in recent times could be repaired. Our timing could scarcely have been better, although that is more than can be said for the time that it has taken to have this debate.
	Our report is certainly a tribute to the acute, shrewd and perceptive chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, the vast experience of our special adviser Sir Michael Quinton and the model industriousness of our excellent Clerk and researcher. The report is all the better for being brief, objective and very much to the point. In speaking to it, I must declare an interest as chairman of Atlantic Partnership, which is a bipartisan organisation established to maintain support for the transatlantic relationship. We are active in the United Kingdom, the United States and four major European countries, and I believe that our message is being heard.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, said, our report notes that transatlantic relations are at one of their lowest ebbs ever. That was certainly true in July when we published the report; since then, the tide has begun to flow back in. On the United States' side, steel tariffs have been removed and legislation is now before Congress to remove tax incentives for American exporters, which the World Trade Organisation ruled illegal. That should avoid further escalation of trade disputes between Europe and the United States.
	Perhaps most important was President Bush's remarkable speech at the Banqueting Hall during his state visit to the United Kingdom, where he restated vigorously America's preference for working with allies and through international institutions, provided always that they are effective.
	"Our first choice and constant practice is to work with other responsible governments",
	were his words. Given that America's immense strength allows it the option of acting on its own, it is remarkable how often it has preferred to act collectively rather than unilaterally.
	Europe, too, has moved some way in the right direction. NATO's involvement in Afghanistan is one positive step, which I hope will eventually be mapped by NATO involvement in Iraq. We have seen Europe's Foreign Ministers square up to Iran for that country's deceit over its nuclear weapons programme. The adoption of the European Union security strategy by the European Council at the weekend—at least, I hope that it was adopted—marks a welcome firming up of Europe's sense of purpose in foreign affairs. While an explicit reference to pre-emption was a bit too much for some European governments to swallow, "preventive engagement" seems to me much the same thing. We are assured by the Government that the phrase commits Europe to early and resolute action to prevent threats materialising.
	So there is reason to hope that we are past the worst in the relationship. We should not romanticise about an idyllic past—there have been plenty of other low points in that relationship. But for the future we need to focus on some of the structural changes which are bound to affect transatlantic relations. The fact is that the Euro-Atlantic relationship has regularly worked well only in the core areas—above all, the defence of Europe itself against the Soviet threat. But there has almost never been much agreement on issues outside Europe, whether Suez or Vietnam or central America, yet those very out-of-area problems are the very ones that will feature most prominently in the future and where the divisions between Europe and the United States are greatest. So we need to find a way to extend traditional transatlantic collaboration to these areas and to the challenges arising from them, particularly terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
	The European Union's new security strategy is a step in the right direction. The test will be whether we can convert it from being a purely declaratory document into concrete measures—including equipping European members of NATO with the military capabilities to make it effective in dealing with these qualitatively new risks. Without that, the new security strategy will be toothless. The Government's recent defence White Paper helpfully addresses the consequences for the structure of our own forces. There is regrettably not much evidence so far that the rest of Europe has any intention of following our example.
	We need to move cautiously on European defence arrangements and institutions. If the Europeans appear to be seeking alternatives to NATO—and that has been and remains the perception of many in the United States—then a process of unravelling will be set in train. Our report stresses that NATO should not be treated as a last resort or disagreeable necessity but as the principal and most systematic forum for EU/US consultation on security and defence issues. A European military planning unit separate from NATO and housed separately may seem very small and inoffensive in the beginning. But nothing in the EU ever shrinks—except national sovereignty. Every EU institution expands over time and assumes greater powers in what is called "competence creep". The first step is therefore the fateful one. It sounds as though the Government have avoided that danger for now, but they—and we—must be vigilant to ensure that it does not come back to haunt us in future.
	Another fundamental risk to the transatlantic relationship is that the process of European integration so drains and absorbs our energy and attention—as it did during last weekend's European Council—that we are left exhausted and unresponsive to external threats. Whether the new institutions proposed in the European constitution—such as the more permanent presidency and the foreign minister—will eventually enable Europe to be more proactive remains to be seen. But so far we too often seem to get the worst of both worlds. The common foreign policy is strong enough to oppose and dilute the assertion of American power, but too weak to allow Europe itself to act independently and assertively on the world stage.
	That is one reason why it is so important to preserve an independent British voice in foreign policy, which must mean no majority voting on foreign policy in the EU. The Government appear to have secured acceptance of that important point of principle at the weekend, in which case they deserve congratulations. I emphatically do not agree with noble Lords who argued in last week's debate on the draft European constitution that Britain's influence with the United States is now so slender that it is only by taking refuge in a common foreign policy that we can hope to be an influential partner to the US. That is a species of defeatism, and I know from my own contacts at very senior levels in the American Administration that is not how it looks in Washington, where Britain is frequently still a catalyst in American decision-making on many important issues. I was glad to see President Bush reaffirm the special relationship during his state visit, without a trace of the diffidence and embarrassment which inexplicably overcome some of our own Foreign Office experts at any mention of it.
	For me the greatest danger is not of some cataclysmic crisis threatening the Atlantic partnership, but a steady erosion of trust and confidence, so that we wake up in 10 years' time to find that the two sides of the Atlantic have drifted irreparably apart and the concept of "the West", which has achieved so much for us, has been forfeited. There are forces pushing that way both in America and in Europe. Plenty of people in America believe that the European Union is a broken reed interested only in institution building and clinging to ineffective multilateralism, or, even worse, intent on building up Europe as a rival to the US, and ultimately intent on getting rid of the United States from Europe. They would be happy to see the US wash its hands of Europe and go its own way. In Europe, just as many see America as a bull in a china shop, interested in allies only as a "toolbox"—to use a favourite phrase of Secretary Rumsfeld—and unwilling to go through the processes of consultation and persuasion which have habitually been the strength of transatlantic relations.
	The only way to avoid those perceptions gaining ground and becoming reality is to rebuild the relationship of confidence and mutual support which characterised the Cold War years and make that relationship work in the new international environment. Of course, we shall not always agree but we must not let occasional differences undermine the long-term relationship. That can be done only by engaging at every level through NATO, through the emerging common foreign policy and through the bilateral relationship—with the last of these, the bilateral Anglo/US partnership, remaining the ultimate guarantee that we can be guided by our own national interests and not have to rely in the last resort on soggy consensus or, even worse, anti-Americanism.

Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, one of the difficulties of debating a report such as this is that time has gone by since we even started in the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling. I believe that we started in January. Since then a lot of water has flowed under a lot of bridges. In particular, last weekend seemed to mark some considerable flow under the bridge. Given that any report has a short-term shelf life, we have to ask ourselves, where does that report stand now?
	Is there now, after last weekend, a coherent European Union that can produce a coherent statement on relations with the United States? Is there likely to be any coherent European Union foreign policy—given that there will be no Foreign Minister or anything like that—before general elections take place in the United Kingdom, presidential elections take place in the United States, and elections take place in Germany, Spain, Poland and so on? If I may say so, we are living on a slightly different planet from the planet we started on when we investigated this matter in our committee.
	My noble friend Lord Harrison quite rightly pointed out that we are—this is true also regarding our report on the Russia matter—looking at the end (and the consequences of the end) of the Cold War. Personally, I do not think that we have quite settled down to the idea that in 1948 NATO had its proper function of defending the West against the Soviets, and that the Soviets had the Warsaw Pact defending them against us. When the whole thing broke down, we had a great problem in deciding what the role of NATO was and, consequently, whether there should be an EU role in defence and what the function of the WEU was. If I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, we have been investigating this problem in the committee for quite a long time in both our reports on Russia and the United States. That is a very important point that I should like to put on the table.
	My noble friend Lord Harrison said that we have to deal with what we have to deal with. There is going to be no constitution of the EU, there is going to be no EU Foreign Minister, so a large part of our report, I am afraid, is now irrelevant. Nevertheless, some positive things come out of our report. The first is that the EU such as it is and will be, even if there is no constitution and no foreign minister, can act on trade. The noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, has just introduced the idea that the EU did a pretty good deal on steel. There is humanitarian relief. There are all sorts of areas in places such as Macedonia where the EU can act.
	It is difficult to see, however, how the EU can have any serious collective policy in regard to the United States. I shall quote a bit of the report that is quite important. Page 12 states:
	"In practice, if an issue proves particularly divisive, as the crisis in Iraq was, the common position is likely to have little substance, leaving Member States free to pursue their national interest. An effective EU common foreign and security policy exists only in areas where Member States see a clear advantage in reaching agreement".
	I have absolutely no doubt that member states such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and others see a clear advantage in maintaining bilateral relationships with the United States. For the life of me, I cannot understand how they will accept going through an organisation—that is what the European Union is—in dealing with the United States. On trade there is a positive, but on the generality of matters there is probably a negative.
	We spent a lot of time on Iraq, but events have moved forward, probably in a beneficial way. I certainly endorse what our committee said about the importance of the EU being involved in what one would normally call the peace process in the Middle East, through the quartet. I am sure that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, will speak about ESDP in a minute. There have been some advances on that subject, and I believe that the United States has come to the conclusion that there is merit in EU-US relations, in terms of a function for an EU defence force of some form or other where America does not want to be involved.
	Other than that, all that I can contribute to the debate, which is not very much, is to say that I deeply regret that there is in the media a wave of anti-Americanism in Europe, and that there may be a wave of anti-Europeanism in America. We spent a long time on the matter and had to rephrase our report.
	I shall summarise, in so far as I can, after what has been a slightly confusing weekend in terms of the European Union and Iraq. It is a time to rebuild the EU-US relationship, as the noble Lord, Lord Powell, said. I do not know how the EU will be constructed. We do not know because we are in suspense. But until and unless we go through a process of rebuilding some coherent organisation in the European Union, I am certain that we cannot as a European Union adopt a sensible and constructive relationship with the United States. Bilateral relations will remain as they are, but until there is a European Union with some sort of construction then bilateral relations will be paramount.

Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank: My Lords, of course the relationship between the United States and the European Union is important and needs whenever possible to be one of close partnership and co-operation, rather than one of confrontation, counterbalance and, from Europe, Gaullist opposition. The implications of the disagreements over Iraq will be with us to a greater or lesser extent for a long time.
	I want to touch on a different matter. Syria is one example of where the EU and the United States need to be in step and appear now to be out of step. The EU wishes to give Syria associate status with access to each other's markets. In the past the EU has insisted that those countries granted associate status should conform on basic human and civil rights and standards. Syria has no political freedom, nor has it political opposition. The country is ruled by a small group, the Alawites. The Syrians are now the most repressive Arab regime there is. They also have an appalling record of hatred against Israel. Like many noble Lords, I am not uncritical of all Israel's actions, but Syrian schoolchildren have an unrelenting diet of hatred based on propaganda and deliberate historical distortion. Their syllabus is one of extreme anti-Semitism.
	I have seen in the past few days films made in Syria recently which yesterday in the Observer newspaper William Shawcross described as "hideous". Actors portrayed Rabbis engaged in human mutilation and pouring molten lead into the mouth of a Jew who was alleged to have had an affair with a non-Jew. They also portrayed a child being kidnapped and having his throat cut so that his fresh blood could contribute to a Jewish religious ceremony. Those films were made with the help of the Syrian Government and broadcast at prime TV time. There were 29 episodes lasting through the month of Ramadan. Millions of Arabs saw them. We should remember the "Protocols of Zion".
	So far, the EU and the UN appear to have said nothing about such racial hatred and behaviour. Why not? Syria has also allowed terrorist training to take place in its country; and many terrorists cross from Syria to Iraq, many intent on killing not only United States' troops but our own British soldiers. Of course I understand the concept of good cop/bad cop, but the divergence of attitudes between the EU and the United States is notable, serious and damaging. In the United States a special Act has just been passed giving powers to the President to approve sanctions. That is a very different message from that of the EU.
	President Bashar al-Assad is receiving very mixed messages and must hope that the Europeans' approach will prevail. Assad appears to be nervous. His eventual and belated co-operation with the United States over Al'Qaeda suspects has, I suggest, had far more to do with the fact that the United States had more than 100,000 soldiers close to his border than it did with European carrots and diplomacy. What has Europe actually achieved with soft power in Damascus, apart from sending mixed messages to Assad?
	The noble Lord, Lord Williams, was expecting me to say something about European defence. I was not intending to do so but I do not wish to disappoint him. I believe in European defence but I am very suspicious about what Europe's people are thinking at the moment. European defence must be a sensible concept if it means that we have stronger capability. But do we have stronger capability? No one in Europe is spending more on defence.
	I am worried about our performance. We could be a real partner if we were prepared to spend more on defence. However, having a small planning headquarters of 30 to 40 people when there are hundreds of staff officers up the road in Belgium does not seem to me to be a very sensible approach at present. A small headquarters such as that will not be able to plan anything serious. It will have to be bigger. All such headquarters always become bigger and are very expensive indeed. Spending money on a headquarters such as that when the defence budget is so short of money and resources seems to me to be wasteful.
	We should understand just how feeble the European effort is. Today, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, interjected that the Minister had forgotten to mention peace-making. I do not believe that the Minister had forgotten to mention peace-making; she recognised that the Europeans were incapable of making peace. They can keep the peace if people want that, but we should not set our sights too high. We may be heading for a political and not a military solution, and that is always disastrous so far as concerns the military.
	If we wish the world to be safer, we must do better with the United States. Like the noble Lord, Lord Powell, my feeling is that, following the Iraq crisis, US-EU relations are improving again. But there is still a long way to go before the European Union and the United States will be able to make the difference that they have the potential to make when working together.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we are all very grateful for this excellent report. I do not believe that it is outdated. I welcome the phrase in the declaration this weekend that the "transatlantic relationship is irreplaceable". We all agree with that. Part of our problem is that, unfortunately, at present too many people in Washington do not agree with that and some within Europe have forgotten it.
	This morning, I received a new book written by Elizabeth Pond, the very good American observer of the transatlantic relationship, which referred to the "near-death" experience of that relationship over the past year. Ten days ago in Washington, I heard a senior State Department official refer to the hole which, he said, the United States had itself dug over the past year in its relations with its allies and which, he assured us, the US would stop digging further.
	How do we get out of where we are? We face a difficult mood in Washington. It is the most divided Administration I can ever remember, with active rivalries between different factions within the Administration, and all the excited exaggerations of the Washington think-tank world.
	We have also faced many divisions and weaknesses in Europe, not only in the past year. I recall President Bush's first visit to Europe in the spring of 2001 when he came to the EU summit in Goiteborg in Sweden where he had to listen to 15 heads of government insisting on lecturing him on America's failures on climate change in not ratifying the Kyoto protocol. Not unnaturally, having heard those unco-ordinated messages, he returned rather bored. There was also European solidarity on Afghanistan but a great deal of scepticism on the push to move from Afghanistan on to Iraq, shared by many in this country.
	How do we repair the damage? I was grateful to see that the report does not suggest that the answer is, as some who write for The Times and elsewhere suggest, to follow Washington uncritically as each new Administration changes direction. After all, we should recall that from time to time when in office Mrs Thatcher disagreed sharply with Washington; for example, over America's invasion of Grenada. We need partnership and not "followership".
	Occasionally we on these Benches have criticised our current Prime Minister for being too uncritical in his support for Washington and for not spelling out to the American public and to Congress the points on which Britain's policy legitimately differs from the current policy of the US Administration. Partnership can come only from a more coherent European grouping; and as British participants in the transatlantic debate we have to insist that there is partnership and not deliberate rivalry. The Gaullist rhetoric that comes from Paris is deeply damaging in its own way. It arouses a counter-paranoia in Washington about a deep suspicion of French and European motives, which is also very unhelpful.
	We need to recognise the long-term trends that have weakened the transatlantic relationship. When I first went to the United States in the early 1960s as a graduate student, by meeting contacts in Washington I discovered what my parents-in-law had been doing in the war. There were old wartime links with people who were still making policy and who had been at Bletchley together or in various other areas where the British and the Americans had co-operated. There was a generation who knew Europe very well. After all, foreign policy was run from the east coast.
	Now the balance of American politics has shifted to the south and south-west. Once when I was working for David Watt, an excellent journalist and a strong Atlanticist, he recalled the shock that he experienced when he first lectured in western Texas and discovered that his audiences there did not know what the Atlantic Alliance was and had not heard of the acronym NATO. That was in the early 1980s. The United States is now run substantially from Texas, Florida and the south, and we have to do much more to explain where Europe is and what are our interests.
	The disappearance of a common threat that held us together has of course made Europe seem less central to US foreign policy. We may say that NATO is the most important alliance for us, but European command is no longer the most important command for the Pentagon. The European region is far less central to American foreign and defence policy. The introversion of the American foreign policy debate, with its intense free market ideas and tangle of think-tanks and lobbies, preoccupied with real and imaginary threats and with other regions of the world, tends to shut out European voices unless they are clear and loud. So there is much less attention to Europe, less knowledge of European developments and of course, given patterns of migration, fewer human links to Europe. It is unlikely that a change of presidency party would change that position very much. The neo-conservatives, who have influence over the current administration, would go and rant and would be outside rather than inside. The underlying trends would still be there. So we need a more coherent European voice.
	In the Government's response to the report, I was very happy to see strong support for a more coherent European voice in Washington, including a strengthening of the EU representation, as well as closer co-ordination of our embassies there. I recall that there have been occasions in the past when European Commission representation in Washington was chaired by a former Prime Minister: for example, Van Agt at one stage. That is clearly the direction to which we should be returning, and I glad the Government recognise that.
	I agree very strongly with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that too many European governments separately pursue their own special relationships in Washington, without recognising that our voice would be stronger if we were better at co-ordination. I also welcome the reports on links to Congress from parliamentarians and others. I have been a member of the Transatlantic Policy Network for 12 years. One of our major activities is to persuade senior Congressmen from both Houses to visit Europe twice a year and to talk about European concerns: to see the world through European eyes.
	I also think that we need to raise the European voice in the introverted think-tank debate. As the Minister knows, I have argued that matter before with the Foreign Office. It would be worth while the British Government investing in supporting British scholars spending more time taking part in a debate which matters so much for us, but which listens so little to the views of those outside the beltway.
	However, we must also have a positive message to deliver. The report rightly says that it is rather shocking how little policymakers in Washington—even so-called experts on Europe—know about European developments; how easily misinformation gets around. There is little known about European assistance to the third world, or about the scale of its troops, which often support American as well as European objectives outside the European Union, such as in south-eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Kuwait, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean and of course Iraq. In the past three years, the 50,000 European troops deployed outside the EU at any point do not compare that badly to the 130,000 US troops in Iraq. We do not make the best of what we are doing, even though what we are doing is still too little.
	I welcome the European security strategy. I was in Washington the day before the previous EU/US summit and was struck that the draft European security strategy was being handed around publicly there with far more enthusiasm than the British Government ever circulated it with here. Clearly, it was intended partly to tell the Americans what we were beginning to do. I rather hope that now that the final versions have been agreed Her Majesty's Government may indeed encourage the rest of us in Britain to take on board what they have now signed up to.
	Some on the American Right seem to want to detach the United Kingdom from Europe and to confirm its status as America's most loyal follower. Irwin Stelzer, who has already been quoted in the debate, and who is of course an adviser to Rupert Murdoch, wrote an article I happened to see last year entitled, Is Europe a Threat? His definition of Europe as a threat was as a threat to American dominance of the world. But partnership for many on the neo-conservative Right in the United States is itself a threat to an imperial American approach to the world. That is part of the case we have to argue, therefore, with more reasonable people in Washington, in Congress and around the United States.
	It is not a sustainable position for Britain simply to remain America's most loyal follower, given that Britain's interests are not always identical to those of the United States. I doubt whether it is sustainable in terms of British public opinion. After all, we saw how much public opinion doubted the automatic support that we gave to the American invasion of Iraq.
	So we in Britain need in our national interest to rebuild a transatlantic partnership. Part of that must recognise that despite this week's set-back, practical co-operation among major EU states can and should move forward with a high representative—if not yet an EU Foreign Minister—a European security and defence policy, which is becoming stronger, and continuing EU-US summits—which will come to play a rather more important role than NATO-EU discussions as the relationship changes. I am glad to hear that President Bush will be coming to Europe this year to attend the Dublin EU-US summit. I hope that the Government are already actively preparing for a coherent European approach to that meeting.
	British foreign policy has for the past 50 years rested on the determination to hold the United States and Europe together. We can do that successfully only through a stronger European pillar of sufficient strength to command respect and attention from the self-absorbed opinion leaders and policy-makers in Washington. That is what the report states; that is why we welcome it so warmly.

Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Jopling for opening this debate, which covers a huge subject. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Atlantic Bridge, a charity set up to promote public education on both sides of the Atlantic in areas such as healthcare, science and economics.
	I also pay tribute to my noble friend for the outstanding work that he did in chairing the committee. Reading the report, it is clear that my noble friend has chaired the committee with great authority; the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, added that he did so with wisdom and good humour; and the noble Lord, Lord Powell, used the word astute, I think. Having run the British-American Parliamentary Group for so long, there is little that my noble friend does not know about UK and EU relations with the United States. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Bowness on agreeing to succeed my noble friend and wish him well in future.
	The House has been treated to some excellent speeches. As someone who used to be guardian of the Downing Street-White House hotline, it was especially interesting to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Powell. I am aware of the excellent work of the Atlantic Partnership—incidentally, founded by my right honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, made some stimulating points about the position of NATO and the EU since the end of the Cold War. I agreed with much of what he said.
	The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, spoke with great authority on the terrible situation in Syria. As he is a former Chief of the Defence Staff, I hope that his points on European defence—especially the need for stronger capability and substantially larger defence budgets—will be taken on board.
	I share the aspiration of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that the Government should do more to build up exchanges between British and American students, but I fear that I do not agree with him that Americans want to detach us from the EU.
	I am sorry that my noble friend Lady Park, a member of the committee, was unable to speak tonight. The same is true of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Inge, who plays such a positive role in fostering the special relationship between this country and the United States as president of the Pilgrims.
	The overall EU-US relationship cannot be assessed without also examining bilateral relations between each EU country and the United States, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, said. UK-US links, French, Spanish, German and Italian links are all different and shaped by different histories. The world is a network, not just a pair of weights with one big bloc on either side of the Atlantic. That is even so in trade and investment, despite trade being in theory solely an EU competence. In practice, as US discrimination against France and Germany on reconstruction contracts in Iraq shows, the interests of the separate member states vis-a-vis the US do diverge sharply.
	Although the report's conclusions, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, said, have been overtaken by events, particularly those of the past 48 hours, its publication is timely—more so following the show of public anti-Americanism during the recent state visit. We cannot ignore the opinion polls, which show a much wider unease in British public opinion about President Bush, his administration and his policies. That is worrying; no country is so powerful that it does not need friends. We wish the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, a very speedy recovery after his operation.
	As the report states, the EU's relations with the US are at their lowest ebb for a generation. Two years on from the horrors of September 11th, the mutual support, reassertion of a common outlook and shared values across the Atlantic have been pushed into the background. The old concerns are back, particularly highlighted by the divisions over Iraq. French headlines that once asserted, "We are all Americans now" have given way to anti-US sentiment. The German Chancellor won re-election on a platform of naked anti-Americanism. The Atlantic Ocean seems wider than ever.
	There remains discord on defence, with growing irritation in Washington over what is seen as the posturing of European countries over their European Defence Initiative. The US sees falling European defence budgets, accompanied by new and unnecessary command structures that involve needless duplications of the command structure that already exists within NATO.
	On the Middle East, the difference in emphasis has become a yawning gulf. Trade disputes fester.
	In truth, transatlantic differences of one kind or another have existed for a long time; some argue that they are now more visible due to the end of the Cold War. However, there is a long history between the two largest economies of the world. Forty per cent of world trade is between the EU and the US, so there is much at stake economically. We should never forget the past sacrifices that the US made for Europe.
	The US and the EU—and its forerunners—have maintained diplomatic relations since 1953. There are various significant transatlantic co-operation treaties, which have important international agendas in which we all share—what the report describes as,
	"deep, common and practical interests".
	Europe and America retain a fundamental common outlook. Despite disagreements over certain issues, the wider relationship generally continues to work well. The report makes clear that the relationship is not doomed but that work is required, on both sides, to ensure that the future relationship is viable and productive. Future interaction should,
	"accentuate the positive, look to the future, and not focus on blaming or punishing for the past".
	The US relationship with the EU works best where the EU has clearly defined competencies; for example, terrorism, money-laundering, measures to combat poverty and spreading democracy and human rights. If they continue to work together more progress can be made in tackling the world's problems. The Atlantic partnership is of great value, not only to the partners, but to the world as a whole. If that partnership disintegrates into rivalry or hostility, the world will become a more dangerous place.
	The strains that we are experiencing are not aided by the negative thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a danger of heralding every new event in either part of the world as a possible new strain on the relationship rather than in a positive light. There sometimes seems to be a curious lack of diplomacy at the heart of diplomacy. There is too much at stake to allow that to go on.
	Much has been written about how the enlargement of the EU might accentuate the divide between Europe and the US. However, little is said about the positive effects. Just a decade ago, half of Europe was run from Moscow, but the values that America and Europe hold dear—liberty, freedom and democracy—were anathema to them. We need a determination to manage the differences that have arisen, and will continue to arise, in such a way as to minimise their impact on the relationship as a whole. We need to identify potential problems before they become a serious source of difficulty.
	Compromise is needed on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that the partnership, which has been of great value to Europe and America—and the world as a whole—for 60 years or more, continues to enhance it for the next 60.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, for initiating the debate this evening. I thank him and my noble friend Lord Harrison, who is also retiring from the committee, for all their excellent work, and congratulate them on the report. As the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, said, it is short and to the point, and goes to the heart of the issues surrounding the complex relationship between the European Union and the United States. It identifies the key to establishing and maintaining a healthy transatlantic relationship—to seek an effective partnership. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, and his committee on the timing of this debate, coming immediately after the weekend's events in Brussels in the European Council and the IGC and, of course, in the wake of the remarkable and very welcome events in Iraq.
	As several of your Lordships have mentioned, events can move very quickly in international relationships—they certainly did this weekend. The capture of Saddam Hussein is both extraordinary and welcome. As the Prime Minister pointed out at the weekend, the shadow of Saddam is finally lifted from the Iraqi people. Where once his rule meant terror, division and brutality, his capture can now bring about a real opportunity for unity, reconciliation and peace between the people of Iraq. As the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, said, it is an opportunity for a return to normality.
	Following a meeting of the European Council and the IGC in Brussels over the weekend, we could all be forgiven for believing—or even for hoping—that the EU has suffered a massive calamity. We would believe that if we took some of media headlines at face value. However, the truth is rather different. Although in formal terms nothing is agreed until everything is agreed in the draft treaty, there were some 82 points where consensus was very close. They included the fact that very important issues for United Kingdom such as defence, foreign policy, tax, EU finance, social security and criminal law will remain the province of the nation state—subject to decision making by unanimity.
	Moreover, the European Council welcomed the agreement that we were able to reach with France and Germany on the future of European defence. It will strengthen the European Union's collective planning capacity while in no way duplicating or conflicting with Nato, which of course remains responsible for Europe's territorial defence. International events have moved on since this excellent report was drafted.
	I also remind your Lordships, including the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, that all 25 heads of government agreed a transatlantic declaration on the importance of the transatlantic relationship in dealing with the global issues that face us all—an important declaration. This relationship underpins another crucial agreement at the weekend—the European Security Strategy. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, that it was agreed. It was welcomed by the United States and sets out the EU's approach to dealing with the security threats that confront us in the 21st century. Only last week, with the publication of the new FCO strategy, the Foreign Secretary reaffirmed the critical importance of the relationship between Europe and the US for the United Kingdom. It is important for the world's security and prosperity.
	I strongly agreed with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, said. The relationship between the EU and the US is rooted in economic interdependence and in shared values and our many common interests. We confront great challenges in the 21st century: global terrorism; the spread of weapons of mass destruction; poverty and disease; and hostile dictators who oppress their own people and threaten peace. Together, the allies among the world's democracies have a special responsibility to take action and mobilise international institutions to meet those challenges and build a more secure, just and prosperous world. Despite the noble Lord's well argued list of differences, I think that the transatlantic partnership sits at the centre of this enormous effort. Britain's place in the world today is based on the twin pillars of our alliance with the United States of America and our membership of the European Union.
	I was pleased that much of the committee's report expressed that view clearly. Specifically, the report says that, first, the terrible events of 9/11 thrust international security to the top of the US agenda, overshadowing the great bulk of transatlantic business that is done quietly and well. Secondly, the report correctly asserts that EU member states agree on the key security objectives but there are differences about how to achieve them. Iraq, of course, highlighted many of those divergences. Thirdly—this is something that should stick firmly in all our minds—both sides, the United States and the EU, will lose out if the relationship is a poor one. Fourthly, I can do no better than to quote directly from the report:
	"Both sides should . . . avoid either accepting or reinforcing the 'Europe as counterweight' perception. Europe should be seen . . . to be a more effective partner".
	The noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, was right to differentiate between aspects of the transatlantic relationship. For example, he contrasted the difference in the balance of power in, on the one hand, trade and, on the other, military power. We have seen the divisions over Iraq and, perhaps, the lesser divisions over the Middle East peace process. In recent weeks, we have seen a renewed interest on both sides of the Atlantic in creating a better climate for the international relationship. That point was effectively made by the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater.
	It was on the theme of effectiveness that the Prime Minister and President Bush focused during Mr Bush's recent state visit. As Tony Blair and George Bush said together:
	"Effective multilateralism, and neither unilateralism nor international paralysis, will guide our approach".
	That approach was echoed in the contributions made by the noble Lords, Lord Hannay of Chiswick and Lord Powell of Bayswater.
	It is also the underlying approach taken by the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Jopling. It set out the key areas in which the EU should act and how it should behave in pursuit of an effective transatlantic partnership. The report rightly identifies the reconstruction of Iraq and the search for peace in the Middle East as two key areas in which the EU should continue to strive to make a difference. It also asks that the EU examine its own military capability and improve its means of communicating and explaining itself to the US. Those points were ably emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. Finally, the report focuses on NATO as the best forum for transatlantic dialogue in defence and security.
	The issue of the ESDP, NATO and the IGC was taken up by my noble friends Lord Harrison and Lord Williams of Elvel and by the noble Lords, Lord Bowness, Lord Powell of Bayswater and Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Of course, NATO remains the cornerstone of our defence. But it makes sense in circumstances where NATO is not engaged for Europe to have the capability and power to act in the interests of Europe and the wider world. It is in that spirit that we have approached the recent discussion on ESDP in the IGC and the separate debate on how to enhance the planning capacity of the EU. On both we have made enormous progress, but, on planning, agreement on a paper setting out the way forward was reached by the European Council over the weekend.
	We believe that this agreement addresses the needs identified for the closer links that the EU should be forging with NATO and for better co-ordination between civilian and military aspects of ESDP. On one point, which I know is of vital interest to your Lordships, it does not provide for a standing EU operational headquarters. I agreed with much of what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, said about improving EU capability.
	As regards the ESDP, the package was on the table at the IGC. We believed that it provided the basis for consensus. It contained important elements, including the creation of a defence capability development agency, a solidarity clause to help manage the consequences of terrorist attacks and other disasters, and the updating of the Petersberg tasks. We supported the package because we believed that it would contribute to the development and strengthening of the open, flexible, militarily robust ESDP that the United Kingdom for long has championed. We also thought that much of it tuned in with what we said in the White Paper earlier this year.
	Therefore, the partnership between NATO and the EU has significant potential that so far has not been recognised. It is a fact which, I believe, many in NATO already acknowledge. At the NATO foreign ministerial meetings in Brussels on 4th December, many allies supported a move for more effective co-operation between NATO and the EU. Various ideas were floated, including a United Kingdom proposal for a joint declaration at the Istanbul Summit in June next year as a response to the terrorist threat. We will keep those matters at the forefront of our continuing relationship and development.
	I draw to your Lordships' attention the fact that the European Security Strategy this weekend described the transatlantic relationship as irreplaceable. I was much taken with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I assure him that, of course, the new strategy is warmly supported by Her Majesty's Government.
	Perhaps I may turn now to Iraq. I believe that my noble friend Lord Williams described the current position as "in suspense". As I said, the capture of Saddam Hussein is welcome news—nowhere more so perhaps than in Iraq. Possibly understandably, some commentators have focused on the difficulties in the current position, but the position is more positive than that. The European Council leaders have restated their commitment to the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq. The attacks that we have seen on Iraqis and the multinational force, and the international presence generally in Iraq, are attempts to undermine Iraq's future. The EU presidency has welcomed the 15th November announcement by the Governing Council. It has welcomed, too, the accelerated handover of authority to an Iraqi transitional government by the middle of next year. The EU is committed to supporting that process.
	Perhaps it is true to say that the European pledge at the Madrid donors conference last October was a little on the disappointing side. But it should be remembered that in the EU a number of member nations have troops on the ground in Iraq, as well as police trainers, and shortly will be preparing a medium-term strategy for Iraq. That strategy will reflect Iraq's needs and complement the efforts of the UN and the coalition.
	I would argue that the EU is becoming increasingly engaged in helping Iraq to achieve the goal of a stable, free and prosperous future. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, raised the issue of the United States' decision to award contracts only to those who supported the action in Iraq, a point also touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever. That point was challenged by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert. I am sorry that he is not in his place because he was quite vocal on the subject. The noble Lord made the point about why should the US not spend US taxpayers' money on those who supported them.
	My point would be slightly different. We must acknowledge that the United Kingdom is among a very small minority of countries that does not attach trade conditions to development assistance that we give. For instance, it is not only the United States that attaches such conditions, but France and other countries also tie their aid to their trade. We do not believe that that is the right approach, but it is important to put that decision in the context of the practice of most countries around the world.
	A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, raised the issues around the Middle East peace process. The European Union and the United States have together been the motor of international engagement in that process. Together we have been at the forefront of the Quartet, leading the work of producing a plan for progress towards a lasting and peaceful settlement. This plan, the road map, builds on our vision, shared in many parts of the world, including the Arab world, of a viable Palestinian state and an Israeli state secure and with internationally recognised borders. Of course there are differences in the nuances of approach on each side of the Atlantic, but the important point is that both the European Union and the United States share the determination to carry that vision forward.
	In the conclusions agreed over the weekend by the European Council and in the statements made by President Bush when he was in London in November, the message is the same: the road map is the only credible path to peace and that both the Palestinians and the Israelis must fulfil their commitments under it. We must recognise that the parties cannot take those steps alone. The international community has a great stake in the process and it must play its part. So maintaining a high level of engagement on the part of the members of the Quartet and, perhaps I may say, in particular on the part of the European Union and the United States, will be essential.
	The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, reflected that at present the Middle East is something of a virus infecting much of the international agenda. To a certain extent he is right. There are enormous differences on this issue, in particular in public opinion on either side of the Atlantic. But it is important to remember that the United States has recently made commitments not made before by a US government. The US has also challenged the Israeli Government on points where they have not been challenged before, in particular on the building of the security fence, but also—and probably of more importance because of its historical perspective—on the issue of targeted assassinations.
	The European Security Strategy also deals with two of the great global threats of today: terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Given the events of recent weeks, we have a real reason to take an interest in this matter. The threat of terrorism is global. Every time I go overseas, whether to EU or NATO meetings or to individual countries, terrorism is very much at the top of the agenda. The EU and the US remain strong partners in the international coalition against terrorism. That co-operation encompasses policy and operational issues.
	On the issue of weapons of mass destruction, we also have an important dialogue between the EU and the US. Only last week the EU's WMD strategy was endorsed at the European Council, and the Union recognises that co-operation with the United States and other key partners is absolutely vital to ensure a successful outcome to the global fight against proliferation.
	Perhaps I may turn to the point made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, about Syria. Last week I spent two days in that country and I agree that we have an enormous amount of work to do. The real dilemma is whether the right strategy is one of disengagement, as the United States would prefer—the noble and gallant Lord cited the instance of the SAA—or is it one of trying to build up the relationship in the way being pursued by the European Union through the association agreement. The noble and gallant Lord was also right to draw our attention to the virulent anti-Semitism in Syria, as well as to the issues around terrorism. I dealt with that subject at some length in my meeting with the Syrian President. I believe that the right strategy at the moment is to offer the opportunity of serious engagement with Syria in order to put right some of what has been going wrong in its international relationships.
	The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, my noble friend Lord Williams of Elvel and other noble Lords raised the issue of trade disputes with the United States. Yes, we have had a difficult and damaging trade dispute on steel. I am sure that we shall see more of that. Of course the foreign sales corporations will be coming up the agenda this year and I am sure that there will be those who wish to see retaliation and a strong stance taken in the European Union. But let us put this in the right context. The transatlantic trade relationship is fundamentally very good and enormously important. It is worth thousands of billions of pounds a year in trade and that means jobs and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. And, of course, we have the ability to resolve our disputes through the WTO when they occur.
	In a wider context, both the United States of America and the European Union can engage in the Doha development round. It is vital that these two huge trading blocs of the world understand the importance of a new trade agreement in terms of the prosperity of those parts of the world that desperately need one. For the European Union and the United States that means a better approach to the key issue of agriculture in trade. We know that that is the position and we have to have the courage on both sides of the Atlantic to address that important issue.
	The range of issues on which both sides have to work will continue to grow. Without an effective partnership between the EU and the United States an awful lot of the issues will remain unresolved. We cannot pretend that we do not have differences—of course we do—but the only sensible path is to work together to tackle the problems that confront us.
	The committee's report referred to a "fractured relationship". It concluded that the relationship had been damaged and was in need of repair. The committee also readily recognised that the condition is not terminal and, as I have suggested, much has changed since the committee published its report. To use the words of the European security agreement which was agreed this last weekend, the transatlantic relationship is indeed an irreplaceable relationship. As was said at the European Council:
	"Working together bilaterally and within the framework of multilateral institutions, the transatlantic partners will combine the vision and capabilities needed to address the challenges of our time. Now more than ever, the transatlantic link is essential if we want to create a better world".

Lord Jopling: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I thank those noble Lords who were members of the committee for allowing us to produce a unanimous report—a point which has not been mentioned—and I thank noble Lords who have spoken in the debate for the warm reception they have given it. As I said earlier, we have not heard any serious criticisms of the report.
	I wish to make only one substantial point to the Minister. I hope that she will ponder on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Powell, about the dangers inherent in the 40-strong planning cell which it is proposed should be established for ESDP. He quite rightly made the point that, unless one is very careful, that 40-strong planning cell could turn into a Trojan horse in the future and could turn out to be a threat to NATO. The Government have made the deal but I hope that they have made absolutely certain that that agreement does not lead to this now very small planning cell becoming something very much larger in the end.
	The only other criticism raised during the debate concerned the length of time between the publication of the report and the debate. I am grateful that the Government Chief Whip is in his place. I know that he is aware of the great dissatisfaction there is at the log-jam of these reports, into which a great deal of effort, care and time is put by noble Lords. They deserve a more prompt and thorough examination by the House.
	The message is clear: the present rift between the EU and the US is very dangerous. There is an urgent need for both sides to renew their efforts to move back as soon as possible to the kind of meaningful partnership we have enjoyed in the past.

On Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at twenty minutes before ten o'clock.